Jackal Among Snakes

With so much occupying all of their time, the week in Relize moved faster than time seemed able to.

Despite being disemboweled by Galamon, Melan seemed to bear no ill will in further discussion. The two of them quickly came to a consensus—that is to say, Argrave’s extortion was wholly successful. Once he’d confirmed the root of the problem—his nephew’s grandson’s cousin, or some such distant relative—the patrician that controlled his family in the shadows quickly acquiesced to Argrave’s request.

By the very next day, this problem child’s body was found in the street drained of all its blood. No one recognized the man, but then that wasn’t the point of it. Even without Elenore present to do some behind-the-scenes work, by the end of the day, talk of vampires preying on people reached every corner of Relize. Some spun it as an ill omen, seeing it as Argrave’s doing. Argrave couldn’t deny he was hurt by the notion but had some strange sort of satisfaction in knowing what he would be doing soon.

For a few days, the rumors built. Argrave had much to occupy his time—besides studying imbuing, he spoke to patricians at Leopold’s direction… all the unsavory aspects of politicking. The patricians needed to know that Leopold’s leadership would ensure their future. Argrave was a cornerstone of Leopold’s campaign, and so needed to sway on his behalf.

Yet on the fourth day of the city’s vampiric scare, Melan’s family had assembled things. Argrave couldn’t deny he wished Elenore was still present—having her confirmation would be quite nice—but Argrave had come far enough without her. And so, Argrave met with Melan once more, a three-day-sober Anneliese with him this time. Her empathic confirmation that Melan did not intend to betray was good enough.

Their purge was more ceremony than battle. Melan’s overambitious descendent had taken control of nonessential and seedy parts of the city of Relize—smuggling and theft operations, for instance. These places were the only ones vampires could operate undetected. The merchant families of Relize counted all their possessions down to single copper coins, and that included people—criminal enterprises were the only homes for them.

Rivalries and outright war between patrician families or even simply common merchants were common. They raided each other, disrupting business and earning plunder. Captives were another good to be sold, another profit to be made… and these offshoots of the Wratson vampire family had been more than happy to buy them. Vampires had a poor reputation around Berendar for a reason. Argrave felt no qualms in ending all of them.

With Dandalan retinues taking a central role, they initiated their purge early in the morning. These vampires, though strong and experienced fighters, lacked equipment, preparation, and half-decent magic users. Melan provided ample magic users, while Leopold provided arms. With these two working in tandem, their disparate and spread-out bases were easy to dispatch.

Argrave himself commanded one assault, gathering them all up with his companions and ten of Dandalan’s guards. Knowing death was near certain, they fought like cornered animals… but knowing they were hard to kill, Argrave did not pull any punches. The vampires were easy to restrain with missing legs and arms.

Once they were gathered—near fifty bloodsuckers—Dandalan retinues brought them to the square just before the Assembly Chamber of Commerce and Governance. Some of the vampires burned beneath the daylight—their regenerative abilities drew away the veil of life that hid their vampirism, just as it might for Galamon if he were to lose an arm or a leg without drinking blood enough to tame the beast after.

Argrave did not wait for people to gather to give some grand speech—that might hint this was premeditated. A small crowd started to form as Argrave’s people restrained the vampires against large, hastily brought stakes. He heard questions asked, people demanding answers from them.

Argrave said only, “I heard rumors spreading about me. I thought it best to correct the record by deed rather than word. Here are your vampires—they won’t trouble you any longer.”

Perhaps fifty people heard, but Argrave knew that was enough. Rumor had spread fast enough about these vampire’s presence, and their demise would spread just as quickly. By the time they departed, the things were already turning to ash.

Later that same day, back within the Wratson family home, Argrave dined with the vampiric patriarch.

“You could have drawn a lot more eyes to that,” Melan had noted to Argrave later, the two of them drinking from cups with very different liquids in each. “For all that effort… it’s a rather humble showing.”

Argrave smiled. “It’ll be inorganic if I have to force people to acknowledge what I’ve done by screaming it from the rooftops.”

The blonde vampire nodded. “A fair point.”

Argrave stared at the man expectantly, waiting. The vampire stared back, then slowly retrieved something.

“You thought I’d forgotten?” he said, handing Argrave a black bowl with strange red runes on it.

Argrave received it, casting a glance back at Galamon. “The thought never even entered my head,” he assured. “I look forward to further dealings, Melan. Provided your family can be civilized… I’m not an enemy to vampires, necessarily.”

Melan nodded, moving his cup about. His gaze went to Galamon. “I see that.”

Argrave didn’t linger long in conversation.

With Argrave’s connections with the Wratsons and the Dandalans largely secured, Argrave felt he could relax somewhat. These two had unquantifiable sway in the city. But despite feeling he could relax, he didn’t. Instead, he became little more than a glorified schmoozer for the few days until the next council meeting.

He and Anneliese attended party after party by invitation of concerned patricians. It was a challenging thing to keep in mind the attitudes and persuasions of each of the patrician families in all of Relize—there were thousands of names to keep track of, and each of them with their own story and desires. All that said, it was an intensely fulfilling thing. Part of it was doing so with Anneliese, yet the larger part was simply because he enjoyed it.

It wasn’t the luxury of things, Argrave knew. He liked the architecture of their estates well enough, but small portions of too rich food and what amounted to foul-tasting grape juice called wine had little appeal to him. Instead, Argrave found himself engrossed in the people. The majority of them were horrible people, and he would never truly think them his friends… but learning how they worked, what they wanted, and how he might win them to his side was a deeply satisfying thing.

This realization bothered Argrave and stuck in his mind. On a particularly fruitful night wherein they made a wonderful impression on a patrician family, Argrave asked Anneliese what she thought of it.

“Some people enjoy the company of others,” Anneliese suggested, leaning out over a stone balcony and staring down into the rushing river below.

Argrave stared at her neatly braided white hair, blatantly admiring her. “That’s the thing. I don’t. It’s not about them. I don’t even like most of them. But persuading them, swaying them… manipulating them?” Argrave finally said. He felt it was an ugly word. “I do enjoy that.”

“You’re worried there’s something wrong with you,” Anneliese looked to him, her brilliant amber eyes as piercing as ever.

“I guess,” he admitted.

“Elvenkind, humankind… we are animals. We are the strangest animals to ever walk. Few others act as we do. And… because of that…” she looked around. “We built this city. We built that great wall of ice in Veiden, that lighthouse of black flame on its coast… we built Dirracha, Sethia, the Lionsun Castle…” Anneliese settled her gaze against Argrave. “We are strange animals. And all of this progress was brought about by strange people that had strange tendencies. Whether divinely ordained or mere happenstance, our oddities make us great.”

Argrave felt a chill from her words, caught off guard. “Did you have that speech prepared? Damn.”

Anneliese laughed. “No, no. It is something I thought about a lot when I was younger. ‘Why am I this way?’ I asked that question so many times. I was a strange person. Those thoughts… just the summary of years of introspection. I felt that they fit your dilemma.”

Argrave gazed at her, feeling a resurging warmth in his body. Being here, now… he could say he was glad things had gone as they had.

The next day, just the night before the council was to reconvene…

“…and here’s the last one,” Melanie declared, setting a chest down at Argrave’s feet.

“Forgot how much this was,” Argrave reflected.

The enchanted items from the living fortress near Dirracha, the items pilfered from the Archduke’s Palace, and the gear taken from Induen’s retinue… it made a great haul suitable for a dragon to nest upon, at least by Argrave’s estimation.

“Here. The manifest,” Melanie handed another box to him with a key atop it.

“Another enchanted lockbox. Elenore remains secure as ever,” Argrave received the box. “Well… gods. This’ll take some time to go through. Thank you, Melanie. You’re reliable, too.”

The scarred mercenary seemed to dismiss the praise easily, saying, “If I wasn’t, I’d be paid less.”

“Well, you deserve that much. I hope you stick by my sister for a long, long while,” Argrave said.

Sincerity seemed to put Melanie ill at ease. She quickly turned around, grabbing her discarded blade. “You’ve given me cause to ask for a raise.”

I’m hoping for your sake, not hers, Argrave reflected, but kept those words to himself. He wasn’t quite sure how to win genuine loyalty from Melanie. She was a protagonist, her choices dictated by the player. It made who she truly was a little pliable, just as Nikoletta, Stain, or Ruleo.

“Ask for it,” Argrave implored. “Grow old working under her. And, uh… speaking of…” Argrave furrowed his brows. “When’s Elenore going to be back? She’s been gone an awfully long while.”

Melanie shrugged. “Couldn’t say,” she said simply, casting a glance at Anneliese. Like she was late, Melanie quickly exited.

“She could say,” Anneliese disagreed once the woman was far away. “She lies.”

Argrave frowned, turning about. “By Elenore’s direction, I would guess…” Argrave sighed. “Can’t help but be worried.”

“She’s tough,” Durran assured Argrave. “She’ll fix things, return quickly.”

“I wonder,” said Argrave musingly.

Durran kicked at the chests that had been arrayed before them. “You said we might make use of some of these?”

“Yeah. If we’re lucky… all of these will be a considerable upgrade. They can open up new ways of fighting, even. What we don’t use, we either sell or outfit some of our troops. Might be we even sell them to our troops,” Argrave knelt down. “I’m thinking we’ll go through them tomorrow while the council reconvenes.”

“Won’t be there?” Galamon asked.

“No,” Argrave stood back up. “They’re meeting in their Assembly—the sewage problem’s been fixed. We’ve been barred along with the delegates from Atrus in order to avoid ‘undue foreign influence’ on decisions.” Argrave looked around. “It’s long overdue for us to relax, talk, do something menial. I say we make this a group effort. We’ll go through these while we wait for the council results—election results, I guess.” Argrave looked at Galamon. “We can talk about this bowl, Galamon… and further, your trajectory.”

None protested, and so Argrave nodded happily.