[Aminatu]

HP 100% | MP 100%

Paladin - Cavalier - Blacksmith

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As part of her daily regimen to gather precious resources for the building and expansion of her tribe’s encampment, Aminatu and her tribe worked tirelessly cultivating the land and relinquishing it of metal ores. The merchant caravans had planned trade routes as well for the expansion of commerce and the precious goods would be welcomed. The tribe ran like a well oiled machine as the Nomadic people were great survivalists and masters of self-sufficiency and sustainability.



Guards were stationed to provide security from all angles while ore veins were mined diligently. The prosperity of her people was Aminatu’s main concern as she talked to each of her tribe and checked their morale. Some were discouraged by the news of their missing beloved Sheikh, Taliset, but they were hopeful to find her soon and return the Jewel of at-Arabiah to her glorious sands. An emissary that arrived on horseback had notified Aminatu that she had received word finally from one of the tribe’s clients, House Blackcroft, and that a letter that was addressed to her and then offered the Huntsmaster the missive. The Huntsmaster took time to wipe her hands free of sweat before touching the letter and made way to the privacy of her tent to read what details worthy of note it entailed.









Several pages are wrapped with a rawhide chord, each bearing the seal of House Blackcroft and a pair of smaller seals to denote membership within the first and current Khi’fika Covenant. The script of the original pages is sharp and precise, the clean, practiced hand of a scribe despite no mention of the words being dictated. The correspondence itself can politely be described as 'prolific' and otherwise as 'aggressively Zarian’, taking several pages to greet each public member of the Small Council despite being addressed to the Huntsmaster personally.



The letters go on to describe Bandit raids plaguing the trade routes to L’Aquina, a lack of local troops due to obligations in Romalia, and finally to request aid from a platoon of Khi’fika and Heliopolite mercenaries. The original papers show recent moderate water damage, though they are fully legible and also shows subtle signs of being promptly dried through magic.



Renowned and honourable Huntsmaster,



It is my distinct honour to offer heartfelt and esteemed greetings from myself, House Blackcroft, and our citizenry: to Marquis Calem Rousseau at-Rabiah, noble and rightful heir to the glorious March of Pelishtim whose reign shall as surely be blessed by the Gods as it shall by the stewardship and wisdom of the Small Council. To yourself, Huntsmaster Aminatu Nandi, supreme Warlord of the lion-hearted warriors of House Rousseau at-Rabiah, captured defending the regal Standard of Pelishtim and the honor of Heliopolis, who endured detainment and engineered escape to smite his enemies and those of the Khi’fika Covenant, and bring glory to both.



To Lord Adjudicator Captain Azrin Tyne, commander of the valiant Sentinels, who led charge at foes overwhelmingly superior in number, and won through strength and valor the freedom and survival of our sons and daughters, and of the honourable General Trebane to whom they are now charged. To Ritemaster Tybalt Melagarien, supreme commander of the venerable Order of the Celestial Serpent and Chancellor of the erudite Solar Assembly, who did rally his charges through wit and arcane might to preserve the lives of the Khi’fika Covenant’s sons and daughters, and ensure victory against the fearsome battlemages of the enemy House Redcliffe.



To Huntmaster Kragdin Longrock, commander of the fearless Fourth Hand, who did lead the assault upon the Citadel of Armenium, crumbling its walls and smiting the foes therein to claim the fortress as a prize for the Khi’fika Covenant, winning glory and strategic position for Her and Her forces. To Lord Grandee Aurelien Tyne, commander of the blessed clergy of the Anhur, who did ride against the phalanxes of the enemy Immortal Legion, rallying his holy retinue to preserve the lives of his brethren while personally smiting an unholy abomination.



To Archon Vevira Molori, commander of the adept Lunar Conclave, who did push into the midst of the enemy Immortal Legion’s phalanxes, and did lead her magus to sow spell and fury within their midst, despite grievous injuries sustained in valorous combat. To Diwan Nhivti af-Rhohem, Blessed of Bast and Stablemaster of the swift and sturdy steeds of the Khi’fika, who did bear the regal Standard of Ra Kotu and charge solitary across the enemy Immortal Legion’s ranks, breaking their phalanxes, slaying an unhallowed vampiric beast, and winning honour and victory for the valiant House Rousseau at-Rabiah and the glorious Khi’fika Covenant.



To Grand Vizier Bartholmaos, supreme overseer of the Ministry of the March, who did bolster the spirits of those valiant souls who would march for the Khi’fika Covenant’s cause, and those stout citizens who would remain to preserve the homefront with his moving orations, and who stewarded and strengthened fair Ra Kotu in her Huntsmaster’s absence.



Myself, House Blackcroft, and our citizenry offer our sincere and enthusiastic gratitude and congratulations on your valor and victories on the fronts of Romalia, through which you have brought pride and security for the whole peoples of the Khi’fika Covenant, and particular honour and glories to the beauteous lands of Heliopolis, which we count ourselves so fortunate to rest within view of, and the noble Heliopolite people, whom we are so blessed to count among our citizenry.



Myself, House Blackcroft, and our citizenry must further offer our heartfelt condolences for your fallen sons and daughters, a pain we know acutely and all too well, and pray with confidence that they have found their way to the Greater plane of Heliopolis, and do dwell now with their Honored Ancestors, enshrined for their noble sacrifice, and may find company with our own blessed fallen they once stood beside on the fields of valor.



It is with a heavy heart that I must burden you with further grim tidings, and tell of pain and losses visited upon our fair Romalia and her Godsly citizens, who eagerly await the return of their own sons and daughters from the fronts of many established trade routes. Barbarians from Venezia violate our borders, a hardship in which we are well steeped, though at present we are absent our fighting men and women, having answered the call of duty and obligation to remand them to the charge of the late General Eventreur, and then to the charge of the honorable General Trebane. Lacking the protection of our own practiced warriors, these barbarians have sacked and razed our storied and bitterly mourned villages of Blackwarren and Athelcroft, murdering or taking as slaves our beloved citizens who dwelled therein.



These savages have now invaded our beloved township of Redcreek, and do deplete Her livestock and liquors whilst chaining Her citizens they have passed over for slaughter, inflicting horrors and cruelties with intent to drag them to their camps for enslavement, when they have consumed the whole of Her bounties they find pleasing and put Her dwellings to the torch. That fair Redcreek is bountiful is all that delays these barbarians’ rampage, and presents opportunity for intervention by worthy champions, of which the esteemed House Rousseau at-Rabiah is well known to possess in uncommon stoutness and quantity.



It is with humility and deference that I must beg your aid, and make clear that this request be on behalf of myself and House Blackcroft, and is made absent the authority of the Khi’fika Covenant. I humbly plead that you might send us a platoon of your renowned warriors, to smite these Godsless Reachmen barbarians, and free our citizens that languish in bondage, as well as forestall further death and torment from befalling our surviving beloved villages. As best we have been able to gather, our tormentors number little more than a dozen, but are of uncommon size and ferocity by even the standards of the savage bandits.



What scouts we have managed to muster identify them as the Giantsblood Clan, a name given by captured raiders of the more common variety, whom our militias have had more success in repelling. I do not minimize the audacity of my plea, nor the danger present in facing down such fearsome foes, yet I hold every confidence that the honed and veteran warriors of the harsh but beauteous Heliopolis would prove more than their match. Nor do I minimize the cost in blood and treasure noble House Rousseau at-Rabiah has already paid to the Khi’fika Covenant, and though none may repay the former, I would consider it a privilege to offer a gift of lumber from our forests, and iron from our mines, when we are free once more to reap of blessed Romalia’s bounties.



I offer our sincere gratitude, regardless of how you must answer, for hosting our faithful messenger Father Alfric in your wondrous city of at-Rabiah, and for entertaining our humble plea amongst your many duties and petitioners. We await your words eagerly, and shall keep your fair land and noble people within our prayers. May Horus, Anhur, and Bast bless you and all your endeavors.



Faithfully and Respectfully,

Count Edmond Blackcroft





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The fog swirled around her.



Lazy, broad, sluggish swirls; air made heavy, but not still. Except... pieces of it seemed turbulent now and then.



The air was wet in her lungs despite the mask over her muzzle. Heavy. Difficult to breathe. Despite moving quicker than an army, it was slow going as she followed tracks in terrain she wasn't familiar with.



At least she didn't have to worry about hiding. Her boots were silent as she slipped along through the fog, following the signs of the retreating ambush, not bothering to stick to the hollows and depressions in the rolling hillside. If she could not see, Raz felt confident no one could see her either.



The fog reeled suddenly to her left, though she could see nothing but the grey haze.



Her birds had fallen back long ago, unable to follow in the fog. They'd catch up when it lifted, but it left her alone. Uncomfortably so, despite being used to such things. The fog unnerved her, but the idea it might not be natural didn't cross her mind. What did she know of fog?



The movement, however, caught her eye. She lowered herself into a half crouch, using the shape of a bit of brush at the base of a tree to conceal the hard outline of her form. Raz brushed back her hood to free her ears, listening intently.



Everything was so quiet and damp and dead. It would have been easy to let it confound her, or to catch a sound and let the air distort its source. Even the sun was hard to pin in the sky; even the mice and the insects were huddling low and out of sight, waiting for the air to clear. Waiting for something to clear.



Like the boom of a far-distant thunderstorm, she heard the first one: a harsh, hollow, coughing sound, yards and yards away, the next hill over?



Then the second, closer, from the opposite direction.



Then, between those in direction and distance, the third.



By the time she heard the third of the sounds, Raz could feel her heart beating in her throat. Her breathing began to even out, though not nearly so slowly as it might have. It took all her concentration to keep it steady. Keep it quiet.



She was surrounded. By what she didn't know, not that it mattered. Her instincts told her to run. To crash through the undergrowth, damn the consequences.



Moving slowly took even more willpower than breathing. Raz began to retreat in that fourth direction as quickly as she could without making a sound. Surely she wasn't being herded. They'd have to know she was here to be herded. They couldn't have known she was here.



She moved towards the safety of that empty direction with only the sound of her own blood and air for... how long? A slow count of ten, then twenty. Thirty. Thirty-eight... thirty-nine...



What had come third now sounded off first, the noise thudding into the fog. Then the farthest one, then the closest, and it was a little closer now than it had been. They were keeping up — and gaining.



There was no point in staying silent now. If there had been any to begin with. They knew she was here. Whoever they were. Bandits, Soldiers, wolves,undead, it didn't much matter.



Now she tore through the woods, leaping over obstacles like a gazelle, unable to see where each foot would fall until just a split moment before as the fog obscured her path. She prayed for water, though she hadn't seen any on the way. A cliff and enough warning to keep from tumbling off it. Anything.



The hollow calls spoke again as she began to run, but faster now: near-middle-far. Middle-far-near. Far-middle—



The nearest one, she could hear it running. It ran fast, whatever it was, but only its strides made sound.



Raz tripped, her toe catching on the uneven terrain. She turned it into a roll, accumulating scratches on her palms and cheek, and continued to run without losing momentum.



Too close. Far too close. Raz continued for as long as she dared, praying for the landscape to help her, but the woods seemed unending. Running up a small incline, she leaped, catching the base of a sturdy limb with both hands, claws digging into the bark. Her legs kicked empty air as she dragged herself up, panting. Breathing far too hard as panic took hold.



A single human voice somewhere far distant, an older man's, cracked out in joyless command. "Tally-ho back!"



Her pursuer never slowed. Smaller than a horse, and soft feet — there. A dark lean shape hurtling inexorably forward, growing larger, a dog, a hound, a massive, hulking hound that ran in silence, that wasn't slowing down, that ran in an awful single-minded line, and it sounded its hollow hacking bark again with the wet thwack of offal hitting a butcher's floor before it launched itself fervent and writhing at the trunk of the tree. Its claws scrabbled and tore bark as the beast's bulk slid down. It coughed another alarm from its jagged, bony ruin of a face, fixing two sickly pinpoints of light in empty sockets on her location as its fellows answered.



"Hark for-orrrd!" came a far-flung high cry.



A quiet huff of panic induced laughter escaped her throat at the sheer absurdity of the beast clawing at the tree. Of course. Of course. Why wouldn't it be that. After all, she was a cat caught in a tree.



With a desperate, wordless plea to Bast— they weren't gloamwolves, that much was clear, but surely, surely the Lady would have some influence with such beasts — she scrambled higher in the brances, cursing her closed-toe boots.



The moment she was high enough, a full length of the beast above the highest point its claws had raked the bark and further protected by the mess of branches, Raz stopped to catch her breath and dig in one of her belt pouches. She tucked the small item she'd retrieved into her mask, letting it rest securely in a fold at the base of her throat, hidden even if she dropped the cloth from her muzzle.



In a moment a second dark shape came surging through the foggy woods, flinging itself up the trunk and clawing desperately for purchase without success. It dropped and began to pace; the first one sat watching. Then the third, its scarred black body shaking the branches as it too hit the trunk... but when it fell, it doubled back and launched itself up the bark anew, falling, picking itself back up and hurling itself in unnatural silent madness after her a third, fourth time...



"Ware!" snapped the man.



The creature stopped. It swayed where it stood, its head hanging. Six dim lights watched her now.



"Dig out or best?" The high voice had been a woman's. She called the question through the trees, sounding too far, impossibly far away to be able to know what was going on.



High in the branches from Raz’s vantage, there was only silence and fog and six steady points of orange light. Finally, the man spoke.



"Best."



"Give best!" echoed the woman.



"Bike!" clipped the man. The hounds below obeyed the command — they were speaking with Romalian accents, weren't they? it must have been Romalian, it wasn't Venezian, it didn't sound like the their tongue — with alacrity. All three turned away without pause, and three dark forms loped after the caller.



Raz was left alone.





Twenty minutes.



She knew she should wait longer, by all rights. Wait for the fog to lift, perhaps. Wait to time the patrol. The more time passed the more likely the next would come. She should wait, let it pass, and then move.



Twenty minutes of hell was all she could stand. The idea of returning to the ground was appalling, but at least there was a chance to escape rather than sit there, resting her forehead against the bark, legs dangling, eyes closed as she listened.



Raz descended as quickly as she dared, not pulling up her hood to leave her ears free. They twitched and pivoted on her skull, the thick cottony silence of the fog somehow worse than hearing those coughs.



She began to move, picking a direction at random, having long lost her sense of bearing without the sun to guide her. It was a different direction than the one she'd run from, of that she could be sure. The broken winter branches she'd felt crack under her boots were absent.



Using the trees, she could be sure to navigate in as much of a straight line as possible. She picked two, sought out a third in line with those, and moved to it before picking out a fourth in line with the second and third. It was incredibly slow going with such thick fog. The trees had to be close together, but it was a sacrifice she had to make to keep herself from going in circles.



It was hard to know how long she'd been going or in what direction when the trees began to thin, both in size and density.



The diffuse light of the late afternoon was dimming.



She paused but for a moment, looking at one of the trees, measuring in her mind. Shit. A deep steadying breath, in through the mouth, blown out through pursed lips.



There was nothing for it but to keep moving, and so keep moving she did.



These were younger and shorter, though twice the charred remnants of older growth loomed out of the fog: a great fire then, a long time ago. Maybe Tybalt could have told her more about how to read what the evidence had to tell her, but he wasn't here.



She kept moving.



The light was threatening true evening when she heard something to her right and behind her scrabble leaves underfoot as it began to run, and then she heard the empty coughing bark.



A short, low growl from her throat met the cough. She marked the fattest tree on a small slope she could immediately see and sprinted for it, only to hear the padding feet of the hound gaining too quickly. Long before she reached it, she was forced to whirl.



Her swords slid from their sheaths with soft snicks as she turned — legs bent and silvery weapons glistening in the fog, eyes hard, having long lost control of the rapid rise and fall of her chest. Raz had only just managed to set her feet in the soft earth as the beast reached her.



Around her, a strange sound had arisen at the death hound's initial cry: a toneless dry drone like a hard wind over rattling reeds. Voices pierced it from near or far:



"Hike!"



"Lieu in!"



"At bay!"



The last was closest, the man's voice from earlier, just as the hound sprang to close the distance in a blur of dark, scarred flesh and lipless teeth.



Bright white Faunri teeth flashed a challenge in the fog as it dove for her... and then Raz disappeared. The beast leapt into empty space as black wisps swirled through the fog, slipping along the beast's flank until the Faunri reappeared. Her sword swung for the beast's hamstring even as the weapon reformed from the darkness.



Lamed, the hound turned for her, but she was gone again, this time much more mundanely as she danced around the muscular dog. Her swords found tendons as she dodged it's snapping maw. Shallow, disabling injuries until it was slowed enough she could push closer and draw the serrated base of her sword across its neck.



Once more she danced back, though now from the arterial spray of black ichor as the hound thudded to the forest floor, and her eyes scanned the trees for more.



It didn't pant, whimper or snarl: there were only the dull sounds of blades on flesh and bone, and even those were drier than they should have been. Less meat.



"Hound let!" the man's voice clipped coldly as the beast fell; the others chorused back.



"All on!"



"Mark him! Hike!" And running, in the quickly-dimming fog from all directions, were too many sets of tireless paws. She could see three shapes weaving in to close on her, now, and hear more behind her.



Another growl ripped from her throat, this one louder. A challenge to the dogs that remained as she stepped back from their fellow to keep from tripping over it. Another step, closer to the nearest tree. Any protection was better than none.



Raz reset her grip on her swords, feeling the hard leather under her calloused palms. She may be hunted like a fox, but she would die with her swords in her hands.



Bast keep my soul.



It was rare that she used her name, even in the privacy of her own mind, but if anything deserved getting her attention, this was it.



Five hounds emerged from the thinning fog to set upon her at once. Her mana was gone within just the first few seconds as Raz shadow-stepped away from those initial leaps. Tendrils caught at paws and legs, slowing them briefly before they pulled free and the shadow melted away with her magicka pool.



The Faunri was overwhelmed, knocked down as one jumped at her back. She tried to roll out of the way, only to find herself pinned by the weight of the hounds. Strong jaws caught on her metal arm plates, immobilizing her arms without puncturing her flesh, stalled by the daggers strapped to her forearms as well as the plates.



Struggling, she waited to feel those teeth around her neck as she lay on her stomach. The small object in her mask somehow unbroken, the hard shape digging into the side of her throat.



"All accounted for," she heard the older man call out. At last, the sound of horse hooves: they came up at a trot and slowed to a walk, and the sound of the big horse breathing — huffing, snorting even if weirdly muffled, dancing sideways in unease — was striking after the horror of the chase. Boots hit the ground. Two more horses were approaching. The rider stood too far to be seen and let the hounds keep his quarry down until those had joined him.



"What a fighter," a woman, perhaps the one she'd heard earlier, muttered casually into the sudden peace.



"They're straining for him, Optio," a second man observed. He kept the words respectful, quiet, as if not wishing to be taken for making a suggestion.



The older man grunted. He walked forward a few steps and the other two shortly followed. Raz's world was too obscured by undead hound-hulk to see whatever passed between them, but she felt the result easily enough: something... crawled through her limbs, seized and froze them, a terribly familiar kind of magic.



"Bike," said the older man calmly, and as one the pack of hounds obeyed.



Shit. Raz's eyes slipped closed for a moment as she felt that sensation in her limbs, feeling the object against her throat. Disappointment and relief warred in her heart as she found herself unable to move.



As the hounds moved off and cleared her field of vision, she was forced back to the present. Bright, frustrated, clever sapphire eyes scanned for any of the speakers she could see from her position with her cheek pressed against the cold ground.



Her own muscles betrayed her: Raz felt her body lurch itself unceremoniously to the side, eyes now skyward — eyes she could still move freely. She could breathe on her own, and it didn't feel as if she'd be prevented from speech. She could certainly hear a heavy, steady forward tread, and then a figure finally entered her vision.



The man who crouched over her would have had a fatherly sort of face, if things had gone differently. It had been deeply lined in squinting through the sun and poring over maps, and it had once been quite tan, though now there was a strange dusky pallor to the color. A thin mouth showed years-long evidence that smiles of any sort were rare, and he was not smiling now — he looked her over frankly, steady in his own absolute confidence, unconcerned, unbothered by the length of the hunt or the loss of the 'dog,' and without trace of triumph for his prize.



His armor, what she could see of it, was well-kept and well-used: dark burnished metal, plain leather. Where he bothered to keep any color at all there was rich black... or yellow. And his eyes...



Even in the dim light they seemed a touch red-rimmed, but that was secondary. Something had happened to the color, it must have. No human iris could be that bright. Hazel-brown had become glorious; it was like polished chips of gemstone, it could easily be mesmerizing if she stared at them too long, it —



"Nice swords," the man declared to no one in particular. Watching him speak from this angle, she caught the telltale wrongness of those teeth.



He wasn't breathing. When he removed a gauntlet to begin rifling through her armor, his touch was corpse-cold.



The discomforting lurch made air huff out her nose, though she managed to stay impassive as she took in the man kneeling over her. A slight working of her jaw confirmed that she could speak, should she want to, before she fell still.



After the blood magic, it was only what she’d expected, but she found herself briefly fascinated. It wasn't a strain she was familiar with. The cold touch of his hands was typical, as was the paleness, the breathing, but the eyes were unlike anything she'd seen before.



She managed to wrench her gaze away from them and stared at his ear instead as she remembered the danger of doing otherwise. Carefully, Raz schooled her face to impassivity as he searched her, not wanting to give away the location of anything important by accident.



"Look at that," the woman's voice mused, mild admiration passing through the phrase as if she'd just watched an uncommon bird take wing.



"Prisca," the younger man broke in. Quietly chiding, though not in disagreement. They fell quiet again. The older soldier conducted his search quickly, thoroughly, and as impartially in regards to the concepts of dignity or humiliation as he might have if he'd been searching a cart, showing no emotion at all until his fingers found the little tucked-away vial. He turned it in his fingers; held it up to the dregs of fog-dispersed light; grunted as he realized it was too dark to see, then wrenched the small cork free and passed it under his nose.



The vampire chuckled, once.



"Tyro at-Paratus," he barked.



"Yes, Optio." The younger man.



"Magic?"



"No, Optio. Nothing of note. The bracelet's enchanted, some kind of trivial somatic field, sir."



"Very well." The optio stoppered the little poison vial and tucked it away, turning his red-rimmed, too-bright gaze on Raz with a modicum more interest as he pulled his gauntlet back on; he patted her cheek before he stood, as if... congratulating her. Well done, the pat seemed to say. It had nearly been... sporting.



"Gather him up," the man directed the other two as he walked away from Raz. "The Praetor will want to know about this one."



Raz's gaze remained on the man's ear, face as blank as stone as he searched her, remaining just as professional as he did... until he patted her on the cheek. She looked at him more directly, then, a small furrow of puzzlement between her brows.



There was a slightly faster inhale, as if she were going to speak, but she merely let it out as he stood and turned away. An odd fascination lit her eyes as she lay there and waited, turning the information about in her mind as she would a puzzlebox that she'd yet to solve.



The other two stepped forward. Raz caught an awkward glimpse of a hawk-nosed young man with olive-dark skin and darting sable eyes — Tyro at-Paratus, then, the mage — just before he hauled her up by her armpits, his companion taking her feet. By the epaulets they occupied the same rank, making her a tyro as well. Tyro Prisca was starkly pale and hollow-cheeked. A blade had taken a chunk of one side of her nose some time long ago, and the black-haired woman wore the unsettling hole like a challenge. Raz saw a tilt of cruelty in her slight smile before the two lifted her into the air with all the ease of unnatural strength, and the Faunri's head lolled uncomfortably down onto her chest.



"You can't make them any lighter, at-Paratus?" Prisca needled under her breath.



"Prisca."



They loaded Raz onto one of the horses and secured her to the saddle, but from this angle she could at least see why the beasts' breathing had sounded so odd: all three horses wore bizarre masks. Lenses covered the eyes and a cylindrical bag enveloped nose and mouth, making them look alien, though even that was perhaps more bearable than the line of ten seated, patiently unmoving pinpoint lights a little ways off.



Raz remained silent, though she let another huff of air escape her lips as she was loaded onto the horse, allowing the deflating of her lungs to take some of the force. There was no reason not to, after all.



She scanned the odd mask on the horse, taking note of its construction and design, extrapolating easily to its purpose, before her gaze was drawn to those lights.



A dozen different tactics flashed through her mind like a shuffling deck of cards — no single one any better than the others. At least not now. She'd have to wait, have to meet this Praetor before she could choose.... before she could speak. These Tyros didn't deserve to hear her.



The last thing she saw was mage's angled, unquiet face: something fervent burned under his deferential demeanor that brought to mind... Rupert? Morvarid?



Her eyelids wrenched shut. No hard feelings. The rest of the legionaries' preparations were made mostly in silence, the lone interruption a brief exchange between the optio and at-Paratus ("I'll yoke one of your hounds for the return." "Yes, Optio. Take Six, sir."), but whatever this involved required no words following. Saddle leather creaked. A rider swung up in front of Raz, giving her a face full of blinded, damp cloth, the smell of armor oil and leather soap and horse sweat, but no human soldier-reek.



"Hark!" The guttural command a few feet away was the optio's voice, and then they were off.





Hours passed.



They tied her to a brutally-sturdy post in an empty tent, and before at-Paratus released his hold on her they clapped a set of strangely dense shackles on her wrists and ankles. In a little while a legionary — mortal, this one — brought a small table, a pitcher of water, a cup. He set it in Raz's direct line of sight, far on the other side.



A little longer and they brought a bowl of stew. It was hot, it smelled alright; she watched it get cold. Then they brought a bowl of... something, something wet and red that did not smell. It was another hour before someone came in with a chair. The legionaries who brought these things were all maskless and mortal; all of them treated her like so much furniture, sparing the occasional glance as if she weren't even worth curiosity, much less gawking. After they brought the chair, it was another full hour or so before the woman in the yellow coat walked in.



The Human was tall for her people, just about six feet, with an odd dusky tan and clear, piercing, gold-orange eyes. So bright. Heavy but handsome features marked her as having been perhaps in her mid-thirties when the curse had frozen her in place. She wore a scabbarded sword which showed no sign of arrogance or vanity, not far different than what Raz had seen the rest of the Legion carrying, and she rested a hand on the worn pommel while she stood back, looking Raz over.



Raz couldn't help the twitch of a smile on her lips as they brought in the temptations, though she made sure their backs were turned. It was probably sweet anyway. At least that's what she told herself as she waited, careful to shift to keep her muscles from getting stiff, head rocked back against the pillar. She remained that way when the woman walked in, eyes moving rapidly behind closed lids, engrossed in the Zarian astronomical text she was reading to pass the time.



Tacita Audax watched this for several seconds thoughtfully. At length she pushed the coat aside and took a fighting knife from her belt. Without speech or fanfare the woman crossed the gap between them, reached up, and made a decisive motion to take a nick from the edge of one ear.



The pain didn't seem to affect her. Perhaps she'd been expecting it. The Faunri's breathing did not change, and her ear remained steady at the touch. She blinked back into awareness as if she had genuinely been asleep, and slid her eyes over to the Human without lifting her head. A single brow lifted in polite invitation, as if Tacita had just walked into Raz's office and cleared her throat to request the Professor's attention.



Tacita met this look full-on, calmly observant but not stern or impassive: curious, a little, and like the rest of them thus far, lacking hostility. She wiped the little smear of blood between gloved fingertips, took a step backwards before turning around, and walked to sit in the chair. "Evening," she said.



"Evening," Raz echoed genially, her Faunrii accent thick. Two strangers greeting each other in a market before doing business. Her gaze followed the Human as she moved away. Curious. Polite. Though when the woman sat down, Raz kept her gaze on the woman's lips rather than directly at her eyes.



Tacita studied her prisoner, head cocked and hands steepled. She sat with her feet planted wide apart, the same thoughtless, powerful surety of Orin on his stool before the empty thrones at court, and leaned forward to rest her weight on her thighs.



"I am Praetor Audax," she announced eventually. "You're in the custody of the Immortal Legion, currently contracted to Venezia. What is your name and rank?" This remained conversational; perhaps curiously, perhaps not by now, it didn't seem to be an act.



Raz didn't bother to hide the answering smile on her lips. Almost... approving of the greeting. "Kaasji," she said without pause. The lie came readily to her lips. "Tyro."



The Praetor smiled a little. "No," she replied.



Raz smiled just a touch wider and gave a small almost apologetic shrug of one shoulder. "It's a good name. Might as well be hers now."



Tacita gave a minute shrug of her shoulders. "I'll call you whatever I'd like, which happens to be whatever you'd like," she said reasonably, "but you're not a tyro."



"Well then, you clearly know what she is better than herself, yes? You tell her what rank she is." There was a hint of amusement in the Faunri's eyes.



Likewise, the Praetor wore a distant hint of a smile. "No," she replied again.



Raz nodded once, curtly, as if an agreement had just been made. "Then today she'll be a tyro."



Tacita gave a fleeting wince, one-sided, not terrifically disappointed, and shook her head as she pushed up from the casually-conversational forward lean. "You have," she informed the Faunri as she reached down and around and used her knife handle to drag the bowl of... bits over and into her reach, "one more chance to tell me the truth before I decide which set of rules we'll be using during your stay." She picked the bowl up, flipped the knife around, stuck one of the unpleasant fragments with it and popped it into her mouth, chewing as she watched Raz.



Raz sighed softly at the threat. "Well now, that's going to get the same answer whether it's truth or not, yes? She'd have to be touched by the mad god to not call herself a Scout in response. Lance-Corporal." Her head canted as she watched the woman eat. "Does your strain need to eat?" the Faunri asked with the curiosity of a scholar.



Tacita shook her head. "Pig clots," she explained with a wave of the bloodied knife in the vague direction of the glistening masses in the bowl before looking up to Raz and offering her a droll wink. "Sometimes you just miss chewing." With that, she skewered another of the thick garnet-colored blobs and ate it, mulling, studying the Faunri as she did.



"The 87th's a long way from here," the Praetor observed after a moment.



"Ah." There was understanding, gratitude, and respect in her raised brows and slow nod in response to the answer of her question. "So it is," Raz continued noncommittally after she'd had a moment to examine the idea of chewing.



"Marines are a formidable career choice, too," the Human continued, leaning on the little side table. "No wonder the houndsmen were impressed. What made you enlist there and not the regular Heliopolite Army?"



"Followed an old boyfriend," Raz answered, again without pause. Dismissively. The regret, the bitterness in 'old boyfriend' seemed genuine, even if nothing else was.



Tacita nodded thoughtfully, chewing on one of the clots. After a moment she waggled the crimson point of the knife loosely into the silence. "So," she said once she'd swallowed, as if she intended to build on Raz's answer, "you're one of this Huntsmaster’s, then."



Raz blinked at that and cut a sharp frown to Tacita. There was a moment of silence. "... 87th's not marines, issit," Raz muttered, the question rhetorical. She tsked her tongue. "You have her deepest apologies. This one should have made that a bit more interesting for you." There was genuine... regret in her tone. Not at being caught in the lie, but in disappointing the Human.



Tacita smiled, a brief affair, though a little wider than the vague suggestions at such she'd mostly given thus far. The expression felt paternal, remote but warm. It was also unmistakably full of regret. "There isn't an 87th anything in the Heliopolis ," she agreed. "And I appreciate the apology, for what it's worth. Which is..."



The knife-point twirled a circle; the Praetor fixed her eyes on Raz as it stuck the air in a little jab. The smile was gone. Still not hostile, but discussing things on a new level, now. "...in comparison to just having done it right the first time? About as much as a clipped septim is to a whole drake."



Raz dipped her head in acquiescence to a battle lost. "Specialist, then," she said with a note of finality in her tone. "Which she's sure you already gathered from the contents of her belt."



Tacita chuckled and nodded, skewering the last three of the misshapen clots and finishing them all at once; the pig blood joined Raz's on the fingertips of the gloves, and the Human took her time to stow the knife, chew at her leisure, and have finished the distasteful snack entirely by the time she rose to her feet. She tapped the air above her upper arm near the shoulder, the place where Raz's own pins would have sat, as if this wordless addition explained itself.



"We'll meet on the field in a few hours," the Praetor told her calmly. "Anyone you'd like an update on the condition of, after?"



Raz met the Human's eyes directly for the first time at the question. A pause. A long, slow, deliberate breath in and out. The first hint of true weakness in the Faunri. "No," she finally said, soft, the word forced out through her lips. The pulse in her throat had quickened.



Tacita raised her eyebrows. "No? Not your generousHunstmaster? Your Archon? The pretty girl who handles your baggage train? She's too sweet to be here," Tacita sighed, a moment of real dismay there. "Not the little Faunri fellow with the watchful eyes or that tall Alv doctor?"



Raz frowned as the list continued past the Huntsmaster , the skin around her eyes tightened. At the mention of the Alv, there was the barest twitch. The ghost of a blink. "Got no reason to believe you'd tell her the truth either way," she said with a shallow, forced smile. The first of its kind.



The dead soldier's own smile remained faint, but it was not at all forced. It even gently touched her eyes. "Usually I go with honesty where that's concerned, if I choose to say anything at all. But by the Black Knight's right arm, Kaasji, I think I'll have to tell you one or two of those are alive and well no matter what." She huffed dry amusement as she turned away, shaking her head. "I won't have you doing anything that wastes our time, and grief always makes you idiots refuse to eat."



"Besides," Raz added, letting her eyes slip closed and her head rock back against the pole once more. "Have to leave Kaasji with something to lose, yes?" A darkly humored smile graced her lips. "This one will choose to believe you, so as to waste time for neither of us."



"You've got plenty to lose," the Praetor shrugged as she pushed through the flaps of the tent. She did not look back.



Raz shifted her weight, found her place in her book, and resumed reading, trying very hard to not think of the truth in the Praetor's words.



——



It had been days since the battle, and the Legion had been on the move.



Only today had they settled into a more permanent camp. Raz found herself repeatedly blinded, paralyzed, and even deafened as the hound banner shifted position, making it nearly impossible to tell where they’d gone or how far they’d traveled, but this morning she’d been locked into a more permanent enclosure.



They’d provided her food twice daily and water enough, and for the most part they’d left her alone — the Immortal Legion had other things to attend to more important than chats with their prisoner. She was kept under guard, of course, but the guards did not make small talk or distinguish themselves much as individuals at all, their discipline rigid. Even the camp sounds around her tended to be more subdued, more orderly. Not once had she heard anyone get loudly drunk, even in the middle of hundreds of soldiers.



This time there was no warning for the Praetor’s arrival, no bowl of snacks. Raz simply heard the clank of a pair of armored salutes a half-second before the woman swept in. The guard inside the tent thudded a third salute, which Tacita dismissed curtly with a nod and a gesture of her head that told the man to get out.



Raz had passed the hours alone in the company of her guard with her head bowed, murmuring softly to herself in Ta’agra. The sheer consistency of it spoke of religion. Prayer, perhaps, but she kept it quiet enough that no mortal ears could decipher her words, even if they spoke the language. She’d eaten only sparingly, though she’d accepted the water.



That same whispering cut off at the sound of salutes, and the Faunri lifted her head just enough to squint at the Praetor and offer a small nod of greeting. Her mane had long fallen down, and she hadn’t bothered to rebraid it. Bags under her eyes spoke of lack of sleep, and what little white was visible was red and bloodshot, her pupils mere slits despite the low light of the tent.



Tacita looked Raz over in silence. Then she stepped forward, pulled something free from her belt, and tossed it casually through the bars onto the end of the cot: a cigarette.



Raz dropped her gaze from the Human to squint at the cigarette. One hand clenched and relaxed. “Expensive habit to encourage in a prisoner,” she mused, voice rougher than when they’d last spoken.



Tacita watched.



Raz didn’t move to take it, lifting her eyes back to the Praetor. “She assumes you didn’t come just to encourage her bad habits.”



Tacita narrowed her eyes, stepping back and reaching for the nearby lantern. She unhooked the enclosed flame from the rope and thrust the light closer. “Look at you, Kaasji. I expected better.” Tacita frowned. “Much better. Your people fall apart the moment things get bad?”



Raz squinted harder against the light and turned her head from it. “Falling apart would be begging for one of these, no?” Raz reached down and finally picked up the cigarette, but only to turn it between her fingers as if it were some foreign object. “No. She merely sees no point in prolonging her withdrawal.” The Faunri studied the cigarette for a moment longer and then, without further ado, shifted on her cot to reach under and drop the narrow cylinder into her soiled chamberpot. “If you wish to attempt to barter for information, you’ll have to come up with something better.”



“That’s what you consider falling apart, is it?” the Human mused. “My, you’ve set that bar low. Not that it’s any wonder, considering your Alv.” The brighter glare of the lantern retreated, and the light swung as she hung it back on the rope.



“Well that’s hardly fair, is it? Horrible basis for comparison. Those idiot knife ears are well known for being dramatic sons of bitches.” She spread her hands in an exhibitory gesture. “How, pray tell, is she falling apart? Headache’s just physical. Are you insulted she hasn’t attempted to escape yet?”



Tacita snorted flatly, her reply blunt. “You look like a fucking mess,” the Praetor declared, and let out a short, sharp whistle, then backed up a step. A legionary promptly stepped through with the cage keys, and Raz felt the by-now familiar sensation of the blood magic paralysis, though with the shackles on it was hard to tell who was doing the casting. Another followed through the door shortly with cording, and between the two of them they had Raz up on her feet and tied tight to the post in a couple of minutes.



The Praetor was removing her gloves. “He’s a Captain, isn’t he?” she asked as the two worked.



“She makes a habit of looking however the hell she wants in the comfort of her own bed,” she said calmly back, before she was removed from that comfort. When the blood magic released her, she tossed her mane to the side and out of her eyes before lifting her chin to watch Tacita again. “He is,” Raz confirmed, seeing no reason to bother denying it. “Though she admits she’ll never get used to seeing him as such.”



Tacita strode through the still-open door to the cage once the two legionaries had cleared out of the tent again. She’d left her sword and gloves on the small table. “Whose bed?”

Raz rocked her head to the side in a ‘oh please’ kind of gesture. “Legion bed that she happens to be sleeping on, then. Which makes it hers in the sense of association, rather than ownership. Her statement stands.”



Tacita drove a jab into Raz’s stomach, low and to the right of center. “Whose bed?”



Raz didn’t tense her muscles, instead allowing her stomach to depress, almost relaxing when she saw the jab coming. “Ah, she sees. You’re making a point rather than being truly pedantic. Your bed, Praetor.”



Tacita smiled a little, nodded even less, and hit her again. A little higher, still to the right. “Whose bed?” she repeated, calmly, as if Raz hadn’t answered at all.



Raz inhaled just before the hit landed, giving her stomach that much more room to depress and distribute the force as the breath was knocked back out. The pain didn’t register on her face, and there was no accompanying sound until she’d inhaled to speak again. “Your. Bed. Praetor,” she repeated.



Again: the hint of approval. Then faster came another blow.



“Whose bed?”



_____



The single question went on, steady in its calm delivery and always accompanied by the thud of a blow — though that got faster, giving Raz less time to prepare, driving her towards unthinking response as the single strikes worked a broad path of pain across her abdomen and torso. Finally, finally, when there should have been another blow there was nothing; the tall Human had backed a half-step up, idly rolling her wrist.



“How many does the Huntsmaster command?”



The answers came more promptly, the Faunri’s tone deadened as the beating went on. Her head began to hang, focusing more on her pattern of breath and preparing for the blows than anything else, her gaze fixed vacantly near the Human’s feet. This answer did not come as quickly as she allowed herself the span of two heavy breaths to recover.



“Three thousand,” she said woodenly, without lifting her head.



Tacita stepped forward and drove a boot casually down onto the Faunri’s right foot, hard enough to shock but not to break anything. “No,” she said simply, resuming her spot. “Accuracy.”



Raz closed her eyes for a moment. That odd movement resumed, but only for the span of another breath. “Two thousand, three hundred sixty five left, minus the loses from L’Aquina.”



Tacita nodded. “Good. What are you doing when you do that?”



Raz blinked her eyes open and looked up to Tacita, just briefly, before dropping her gaze back to the ground. The confusion seemed genuine. “Do what, Praetor?”



Tacita tilted her head. “Your eyes move like someone dreaming.”



Raz frowned at the ground, considering this. “It’s a… memory tactic, she supposes you might call it.”



Tacita sighed at the vague reply, turning for the still-open door of the cage.



Raz looked up, though she didn’t dare lift her head, and watched. And waited.



Tacita retrieved the heavy Venezian blade, though she kept it in its scabbard; on her way back to Raz the woman flipped it in her grip. She closed the distance between them again with neither hurry nor pause and struck a jabbing blow to the side of Raz’s left thigh with the plain steel ball of the pommel, aimed low, just above the knee. “Half of that sentence was just air.”



Air that she couldn’t afford to lose, as was exhibited by the quiet instinctual exhale after the blow. “She visualizes information to assist her memory,” Raz explained. “Her eyes move because she is flipping through ‘files’ and reading.”



Tacita nodded, satisfied. “What was in Fort Doberdo?”



Raz canted her head slightly, still staring at Tacita’s boots. “… Suicidal Antas and diseased corpses.”



Tacita switched hands, the pommel slamming into the same place on Raz’s right leg now. “‘I don’t understand the question, Praetor Audax.’ What was in the fort that was so important to the Pontificate?”



While her vocal cords remained stoic, Raz didn’t seem inclined to fight her body’s natural responses to the blows. Her right leg jerked left limply, as she’d shifted her weight to her other foot to allow its movement. “Nothing. It was the location they wanted. Strategically speaking.”

She’d been tied securely enough that she could indeed sag her full weight against the bindings, though it would bite into the ache from earlier in the two spots it cut across the bottom of her ribcage and low on her stomach.



The Praetor pursed her lips briefly as she contemplated the answer, her gold eyes reddened slightly around the edges where they hadn’t been when she’d come in. Had they? “You’re a spy,” she said eventually. It was not a question. “A good one. And loyal. It’s within my right to consign you to the feed lot, but obviously that’s a waste. So we’re going to set out how this goes, Kaasji.”



Planting the point of the scabbarded sword in the ground, Tacita leaned on it, feet planted wide. “Your people don’t belong out here. They fight like demons, sure. But they’re a mess. I won’t pretend that it would be easy for me to get to who I need, but I think we both know that if I set mine to it, I could make sure a few key ones of yours were dead. That’s whose lives are on the line as we go forward. Not yours, since that doesn’t matter to you much. Understood?”



Raz kept her chin down, but lifted her eyes to meet Tacita’s gaze at ‘spy’, and continued to do so steadily as Tacita continued. The mention of her people revealed that core of iron will in her eyes that had been so absent facing her own beating. “Understood,” Raz said deliberately. Dedication replacing the earlier emptiness. “And agreed. On all counts.”



Tacita flashed her closed, subdued smile at the reply, genuinely warm for a second. “Good,” she nodded. “I like you. What makes you follow the Huntsmaster?”



The corner of Raz’s lips twitched in answer. An echo of the same sentiment. “She is loyal to the people of Heliopolis. She is the Huntsmaster. Our regent. He is a good man. Honorable. Respects the tradition of the land and its peoples. She follows her because she is the best woman for the position.” The unspoken ‘and will continue to do so until that is no longer true’ hung heavily in the silence after her words.



Tacita nodded. “Why doesn’t she take prisoners?”



The Faunri’s lip raised, showing a single sharp white Faunri tooth. “General Eventruer’s orders.”



Tacita narrowed her eyes. “Hm. He’s wasted flesh the gods forgot to issue a brain.”



Raz looked as if she were about to spit on the ground in agreement, but remembered her manners at the last moment. “Her… ‘Alv’ is a good man, though a moralistic idiot. He refused and was lashed for it. His own fault.” Her jaw worked for a moment. “The General you killed at Doberdo was going to let us leave Romalia, had we succeeded in taking that fort. Now we’re under Eventreur.” The Zarian man did not seem to deserve a title anymore, now that it was known by both parties.



Tacita raised her eyebrows slightly but didn’t bat an eye at the first part of Raz’s reply — she made it, in fact, to the very end, to Eventreur’s titleless name. Then there was a blur. The metal pommel flashed up and inwards to strike the Faunri a ringing blow on the side of the head, the force landing just shy of bone-cracking and the pain immediately multiplied by the Praetor’s wrenching grip on Raz’s mane. Her gold eyes were too close to the Praetor’s, now; she bared her teeth, fangs in full view.



“He is my enemy,” she grated. Her breath smelled of dried blood. “He is your commander.”



Raz slumped against the bindings at the blow, the crack and whoosh of air as she gasped the only sounds until Tacita spoke. Her headache had increased a thousandfold, ringing in her ears, and it took what felt like a long time for her eyes to focus on Tacita. But there was no… fear in her gaze. Merely surprise. Respect at the choice of the Praetor’s grievance.



“She’s….” Her eyes squeezed shut for a moment as her head throbbed, held in place only by the woman’s grip on her mane. “She will follow her orders, but respect is earned, Praetor Audax. She may have begun by using his title when he first arrived, but after everything she’s learned of him, doing so now would be a lie. So tell her, Praetor. Would you rather her lie to you for propriety’s sake, or would you rather the truth?”



Tacita waited for Raz to come around, lips closing slowly over her fangs as the Praetor gave her answer and reddened eyes scanning, hunting, for any shred of either insolence or dishonesty in the response. The Human held her there for a long stretch even after she’d finished speaking. At last, she unceremoniously released her hold.



“You’re not a soldier,” she said flatly as she stepped back. The word seemed to exist on its own layer of meaning beyond the technicalities, and she said it as if it couldn’t help but explain; as if explaining to herself. Then: “You could be.”



She thinned her lips, flipped her hold on the sword again, and turned toward the table. “Eat or we’ll make you. Keep yourself neat. You’re better than that.”



Raz’s head fell when it was released, the majority of her weight still slumped against the ropes. “Never claimed to be,” she murmured. In agreement, rather than any form of snark, and with an odd respect in her tone for that word. “Yes, Praetor.”



Tacita whistled again. Like before, it summoned guards from outside, and the Praetor turned around to watch them untie the prisoner and carry her temporarily-frozen form back over to the cot. One remained with his hand on his sword near her head while, at a jerk of the tall woman’s chin, the other poured Raz a full cup of water. She found herself able to move again as this was offered to her. All three would watch in silence until she was done drinking it, no matter how long this took.



Raz pushed herself up slowly, just to one elbow, enough to drink. With a nod of gratitude, she took the cup. It wasn’t a fast process. The first couple sips resulted in a grimace and gritted teeth as a wave of nausea rolled through her. A pause. A few more sips. Another grimace and pause. At long last she was able to pass the cup back with another miniscule dip of her chin and allow herself to slump back to the cot.



The cage door clanged as it was locked. The guard holding the keys saluted as he made his exit. The other remained.



“Your doctor’s alive,” Tacita announced; with that and a salute from the remaining guard, she turned and was gone.



Raz held her breath at those words, as if not trusting herself to do otherwise, eyes on the bars above her. Only when her lungs could no longer take it did she begin to breathe again. Her hands lifted to her head, prodding at her skull with the pads of her fingers. Then her ribs. The remaining guard, should he look, might notice that the ritual seemed rather practiced. Only when she was satisfied did she close her eyes and finally drift off to sleep, time of day be damned.

INVENTORY

EQUIPMENT: Arm of Heliopolis, Starter Heliopolite shield, Heliopoilte Platemail
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