Jackal Among Snakes

Ruleo stepped through the stone confines of the Order of the Rose fortress he inhabited with one other beside him. This place was far more elaborate and long than most fortresses of theirs he’d visited—from all he’d gathered in old books, this place had been the site of a prolonged war. The fortifications, and concurrently the number of undead, was astronomically high in this place.

Ironically, that war was mirrored centuries later—Argrave’s army stood opposite the valley, while their Unhanded Coalition defended the valley with Castle Cookpot. The exact same situation had occurred long ago, with the Order of the Rose building these fortresses beneath the earth for a strategic advantage. It had led to their victory, evidently. And Ruleo felt somewhat confident it would lead to theirs, this time.

He looked to Georgina. For some reason, she’d brought a large backpack with her. She fought for King Felipe III, but Ruleo didn’t care who won this war.

“What?” Georgina looked at him scornfully. She didn’t like being looked at, he’d found, and any compliments about her beauty might as well have been insults in her ears. Worse yet, any sort of attention she got was assumed to be lecherous. In truth, he didn’t like her at all.

“You’re wasting your time coming here, Georgina,” Ruleo told her curtly.

“The undead you’re sending out could kill tens of thousands of soldiers. I let you go unsupervised, but this could be just as big a threat to the Unhanded Coalition as it is Argrave’s forces. And you send them out… especially recklessly.” She paused, peering ahead into the darkness. “You’re throwing away a precious fighting force with such little regard for what they might be usable for in the future. I wanted to see why.”

Ruleo paused, too. “I send them recklessly because they need to die.”

“A necromancer thinks the undead are abominations?” she crossed her arms.

“I don’t care about necromancy,” Ruleo shook his head. “It’s only another form of magic in my eyes, same as any others. In fact, it makes corpses just a bit more useful. Might be considered a boon,” he mused. “But… I know something is coming. Something that corrupts all of these things against the living—makes them weapons of war in a calamity. I have to get rid of them before that happens.”

“What is this, a fairy tale?” Georgina said disdainfully.

Ruleo felt the frustration that came with someone acting arrogant when they were only ignorant. “You want to talk fairy tales? Then let’s talk about King Felipe’s prospects. Him taking the throne once more—that’s a fairy tale.”

Georgina scoffed and smiled brightly. “If you really think that, why are you here?”

“I’d be here regardless. These things would be chewing through northerners instead of Relizeans, though. The only reason I work with you is because I’d like Argrave on the throne the least of everyone, and you gave me the information I needed to ruin his advance,” Ruleo cracked his knuckles. “Bigger things are coming than this civil war. This is a month’s work, wholly insufficient… but I can’t do nothing when I’ve seen what’s coming.”

“I didn’t need the see the undead,” Georgina put her arms to her side, and Ruleo watched to see if she drew a weapon or cast a matrix. “My intuition alone is enough. You’re dangerous.”

“And you’re dumb. Not dumb enough to start a fight here, though,” Ruleo chuckled beneath his breath. “I don’t care for your little coalition. I don’t care for you—not one bit. But I’ve hurt some people I like a fair bit, and I’ve helped some people I didn’t. So long as you keep feeding me information, I’m no double-edged sword. Just an ugly looking one,” he finished, white eyes veritably glinting.

“I’ve got a sword of my own. And your designs might interfere with that. If I’m the dealer, I’ll pay attention carefully to all cards that leave my hand,” Georgina watched him. Then, her gaze looked beyond him, and she cried, “Look out!”

Ruleo laughed, refusing to take his gaze off her. “Like I said—”

Pain assailed the back of Ruleo’s head for half a second, and then blackness took him.

#####

Melanie hadn’t been arrogant when she mentioned she had valuable tricks up her sleeve. Durran used but one—she called it a Windflesh Brew, and it changed the body so that any movements didn’t disturb the air. The place was dark already and he employed illusion magic on top of that. With all those factors in tandem he’d been able to sneak through all of this so adroitly it felt unfair. Melanie still had other things hidden away, too—weapons of mystical origin.

Yet the deeper they went, the further Durran felt this situation was nightmarish. Though they’d only been plagued with fast-moving heads with arms emerging where their ears ought to be, fouler things had been gathered here into newly-made cages—chitinous humanoids with blades embedded in their flesh, gargantuan thousand-armed creatures. Durran suspected Ruleo controlled only batches at a time, sending them to fight piecemeal. Death by attrition. He had no idea how Ruleo controlled these creatures—Garm’s writings never spoke of co-opting things already made.

But that was over, now. Durran stood over Ruleo, brandishing his glaive nimbly after hitting him with the blunt end. The blow was still powerful enough to draw blood, and he stepped over the unconscious man to confront this brunette woman—from their conversation, Georgina. He hoped to end her now. He’d intended to kill Ruleo, too, but after what he overheard he decided an interrogation was in order before they came to that. Even despite things, Durran was still strongly in favor of putting him to death.

“Melanie,” Durran called back, kicking the man’s body as he cleared him. “Take him, secure him. Too early for his death.”

Georgina pranced down the long corridor cautiously. Then, she held her hand out and prepared a spell. Durran perceived the matrix’s potency at once—it was B-rank. A wave of frost erupted, obscuring all vision in front of him. Thinking quickly, Durran reached to his side to retrieve a dagger of Ebonice. He threw it where he last saw her, then used one of the rings that Argrave had made. A ward of matching rank with the approaching spell emerged to shield him. It wasn’t large enough to cover the whole hall, so frost wreathed about it, coating all but a cone behind him in crystals of ice.

Once the vision cleared, Durran looked beyond his ward to see what was happening beyond. Georgina tried to cast another spell, but the matrix wobbled and shattered. Durran saw it, then—the knife had stabbed into her shoulder, barely getting past her armor. Seizing the opportunity, Durran dispelled the ward and sprinted forth.

The woman panicked as Durran ran, backstepping to put distance between them. She vainly attempted another spell, but when it failed once again her hand reached for the Ebonice dagger. By then, Durran was nearly upon her. Then, her body shifted dramatically—one foot planted steadily, and her momentum rotated from moving backward to forward without any loss of speed in a strange, serpentine technique. She pulled the dagger out of her shoulder and lunged towards him.

Durran shifted his grip and used the haft of the glaive as a quarterstaff, swiping at Georgina to contest her quick speed. She ducked low and stabbed at Durran’s knee, aiming for a gap in his armor. He shifted his leg backwards to dodge, yet the moment his leg was off the ground she raised free hand to cast another spell. It was a quickly-forming low-rank wind spell, and with only one foot on the ground his balance was dreadful. Durran staggered, very nearly falling to his back.

Georgina stepped back, dropped the dagger, and used both her hands to grab her backpack. She got her arms out of its straps quickly and slammed it to the ground. It clanged noisily, then howled as though something within had been hurt. She tried to reach for the Ebonice dagger, yet Durran cast the C-rank [Skysunder], striking her with white lightning. Spasming once, as soon as he had her faculties she gave one final push of her backpack and ran like a burnt dog.

Durran stepped to pursue, prepared to bound over whatever she’d set down. The fabric of the backpack exploded outwards, revealing a battered cage. Three blue ethereal paws rushed towards Durran, swiping at him with long claws. He ducked low and jumped backwards, but one slashed across his thigh. He expected his armor to work as well as it usually did, but instead his flesh seared in pain while his armor remained untouched. He felt warm blood pooling in his boot.

Maintaining a healthy distance, Durran swiped at the claws emerging from the cage with his glaive, yet it passed through them as though he held nothing at all. He cast a spell of flame, and though that had some effect, his magic was running low after their long journey. He dodged another swipe, then used his glaive to sweep up the discarded Ebonice dagger. He took it and ran back.

As he slid the Ebonice dagger back into his belt, he saw Melanie. As he asked, she’d bound Ruleo… though in a crueler manner than he’d expected. She had his hands tied behind him and further bound by stabbing his palms with barbed tent stakes. Durran supposed it was a mercy the man was unconscious.

“What is this? This is the guy, right?! The necromancer? Good gods, he… he worked for Elenore…” Melanie looked down at him angrily. “We need to end him, get out of here! That woman is definitely going to bring reinforcements.”

“He has valuable information,” Durran disagreed, kneeling down and healing the wound on the back of his head. “I’ll carry him if you’re worried about breaking your back. He’s worth more alive than dead.”

Melanie looked back at the cage, still writhing with those ethereal paws. “I’m only worth anything alive. I’ll leave you here if you’re slow.”

“No, you won’t,” Durran said, grunting as he hefted Ruleo over his shoulder. “You couldn’t leave me here if you tried.”

#####

Ruleo opened his eyes and winced in pain that surged from several places. He tried to move his arms, but that exacerbated the pain in his hands and he cried out in pain. He realized something bore through his palms.

“Long time no see,” a voice greeted him, and Ruleo whipped his head up.

Ruleo exhaled, and the fear of death fell over him as he met familiar golden eyes.

“Should’ve guarded all your entrances. Got careless,” Durran told him. “Never thought we’d take the fight to you, alone and isolated, huh? Did you forget about cornered rats?”

“Hah,” Ruleo laughed. He could always laugh at the wrong times. “Rats that don’t know that…” He winced. “…that they’re rodents.”

Durran leaned in, and Ruleo feared the torture was to begin. “We’re going to talk about that calamity you mentioned. Among other things.”

Ruleo narrowed his eyes, surprised that of all things, the calamity would be the first topic of conversation.