Interlude:

The Shadow That Stalks

Mishna was a harsh city. Like most of Bustavia, it was snowy and frozen and the people who inhabited it were much the same. Lance had never felt more at home. Bustavians constructed all their dwellings from coarse stone and refined metals, all materials readily available to the nation as it contained some of the largest deposits of mineral ores on the planet. Bustavia was a mining nation – it thrived off the practice. Mishna itself was a mining town, built far to the north of the Kingdom. It sat nestled securely on the side of the mountain range that separated Bustavia from the Deadlands, constructed right into the mountain itself for easier mining access. It was one of the richest of the many mining cities in the Kingdom, a veritable metropolis in its own right, always busy and always working. Constructed as a tiered, top-down pyramid of sorts, it was also one of the strangest cities in the world.

The lower strata were reserved for the lower castes, as it were, with each tier representing a rise in social standing and personal wealth. The everyday citizens – the usual melange of commoners, labourers and beggars – inhabited the lowest tier of the city: nicknamed the Rust. Entrances to the mines were on the level above this so mining waste like rock, tailings and dust were a common hazard of living in the strata, hence its name. Above the mines was the mercantile tier, where all the usual trade stores and merchant guilds were located. That was about as far as a common citizen of the city could go. Each successive tier above the trade district became progressively wealthier, being filled with all manner of other upper-class citizenry and services that a commoner would either have no need for or not be able to afford at all. At the very top level of the city sat the Duchess who presided over the city. It was not unheard of for inhabitants of the Rust to strike it rich and ascend their strata, but it was a rare and extraordinary occurrence. Most stayed in their lot for generations, both above and below the mines that made the city what it was. To rise above your class was to literally climb the mountain.

In the Aurelian tongue, the mountain range Mishna sat on was called Lédnia Òronti – literally Ice or Snow Mountain – or, more commonly, Mahàlm’a Jinéal – the Throne of Jinéal. Although the Aurelians were a minority race – even rarer than the Carnelians in Sevet – everyone in Bustavia spoke the language. It was their nation’s tongue, after all. There was a language known as Bustavian as well, but this was mostly used for written records and was rarely spoken. It consisted primarily of strange glyphs and pictographs. It was an unspoken rule that this language was a closely guarded national secret. No Bustavian would ever teach it to someone from another Kingdom as it was used to keep all records and documents of the Kingdom a secret – much like the secret language of the Mizzarosi royal family that was taught only to those of the imperial bloodline.

Lance respected the Bustavians greatly. They were specialists and took great pride in their work, guarding their secrets jealously. He sometimes wished he had been born into the Kingdom. Not only was their mining technology so advanced that they could mine in the uninhabitable frozen tundra of the Deadlands, far to the north of the planet – something no other nation had yet achieved – they were the single largest manufacturer and supplier of specialized weaponry to all other nations. Their grasp of metallurgy and warfare was unparalleled. While Sevetians were the “Blacksmith Lords” and produced most of the common weaponry like swords, spears and shields utilized in combat, Bustavians had invested heavily in utilizing their resources to develop new technologies and inventive ways to kill people. Cannons, metallic ballistae, trebuchet and crossbows, as well as the newer, smaller, handheld cannons were their bread and butter. No other nation had quite yet figured out how they made most of their weaponry, the metalwork being so precise and intricate and well-crafted that it was impossible for a lay blacksmith to replicate.

Lance was pulled from his thoughts by his arrival at his destination.

It was a small, unassuming tavern, tucked away in one of the many forgotten corners of the Rust. He entered the dingy interior, assaulted by the smudged lighting and the stiff stench of urine and stale ale. He reviled the conditions of the place, but he had no choice but to enter.

He walked up to the bar, behind which sat an old lady with an unwelcoming face.

‘Nemlíak?’ she asked, her voice grating and sour.

‘No,’ he replied, his Aurelian just good enough to pick up the word. ‘Mizzarosi. There’s someone waiting for me?’

The old lady sneered and jerked her head to a table tucked away in the corner of the tavern. Lance could just barely make out a shape sitting in the dark. They appeared to be the lone patron of the tavern at this time. Everyone else was most probably still at work in the mines.

He nodded his thanks to the barkeep stiffly and made his way over the table.

‘You are the one they call Hunter?’ he drawled as he came to a stop in front of the table.

He could see that the person sat at the table was female, which surprised him greatly, although he didn’t show it. The light was too muddy and dim for him to properly discern her features, but she had dark hair and eyes.

‘Please, have seat,’ she replied. Her accent was thick; unmistakably Aurelian. The words she spoke sounded foreign in her mouth, but her voice was not altogether unpleasant.

Lance looked at the chair left open in front of him, the disdain clear on his face. He obliged the request.

‘You want drink?’ the woman called Hunter asked.

‘I’m fine. I just want the information,’ Lance replied coldly.

‘All business? Share drink with me first. It is custom in business.’

‘I just want the information,’ he repeated, his dry voice somehow attaining a new level of mirthlessness.

Hunter sighed and took a sip from her cup. ‘Big scar, huh?’ she indicated by touching her own shrouded face. ‘Your prey gave it to you?’

‘No.’

‘Not big talker? Okay then, I will tell you. He is not in Kingdom. Not anymore.’

‘Where did he go then? Camar? Namaria?’ Lance asked, unable to hide the slight hint of excitement in his voice. ‘What was he doing this far north anyway? Why did he come here? What did he hope to achieve?’

‘Ah, now he talks…’ Hunter seemed to size Lance up before she continued slowly, ‘Your prey, he stop here a few days. Talk to old contacts. They help him. Of course, they will help him no more. Before I say more, you must tell me first: Why are you hunting him?’

Lance suppressed his irritation as best he could. He needed the information she had. He could entertain her for a few moments more. ‘It is what was ordered of me. My contract—’

‘Ah, ah, ah… Telling lies,’ Hunter said flatly, interrupting the man with a wag of her finger. ‘I want only truth.’

She leaned forward from her dark corner and Lance could see her quite clearly now. She was young – too young perhaps – and quite pretty, but her eyes betrayed her. They were not the eyes of some maiden or simple commoner. No, she had the eyes of a killer. Cold and merciless and lifeless, like the iron of a blade. Lance knew seasoned assassins with less dead eyes than this girl. She placed her elbows on the table, folded her arms and gazed at him with those eyes. Staring him down. Sizing him up.

He was taken aback by the sudden movement, but he maintained his cold composure. ‘I do tell the truth,’ he replied evenly. ‘Now, the rest of the information?’

‘You know why they call me Hunter?’ she asked. A lick of the lips. A small, harmless gesture that unnerved Lance somehow.

‘You track people down. You can find anyone. That’s why the Imperative—’

‘No, no, no,’ she cooed, like a mother comforting their new-born baby. ‘This is easy. This is something anybody can do. I am the Hunter because I know the prey. I am in their mind. I am their thoughts. I know where they will run. Where they hide. I know when someone tells me lies.’

‘What do you want from me? Haven’t you been contracted by the Imperative simply to provide me with the information I require? Isn’t that why you were hired?’ Lance let out an exasperated tut despite himself. ‘Stop wasting my damn time.’

‘I hear stories of you, assassin. The one who failed, they whisper,’ she whispered mockingly. ‘The one who let the traitor slip away. He was your blood brother, no? And you let him escape with a princess? Tsk, tsk, tsk,’ she tutted. A smirk played at the corners of her lips.

‘What is the point of this?’

‘You don’t understand, assassin. Why you think they send you to me?’

‘I am following his tracks. You were simply meant to provide information to aid my search. If you insist on wasting my time like this, I might as well take my leave and pursue more useful avenues of investigation,’ Lance stood up to emphasize his point. He added, with some unnecessary vitriol, ‘The Imperative will learn of this affront.’

Hunter did not even move a muscle. ‘No. They send you to me because they don’t trust you. They don’t think you will finish job. They think you are coward, or maybe incompetent. Or maybe you even work with him, no? The traitor is your blood brother,’ she repeated this phrase with a venom in her words that gave Lance pause.

‘That’s not true,’ he said through grit teeth. ‘I will kill him. He will not escape a second time. That is on my honour as an assassin of the Imperative.’

‘I will make sure of that,’ Hunter said, her voice suddenly shifting into a cheerier tone. She leaned back into the shadows so Lance couldn’t see her expression.

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘It’s simple. I go with you.’

‘No. Impossible. I work alone.’

‘No room for error, assassin. I have orders too. I go with you.’

Lance could barely suppress the rage bubbling inside of him. He wanted to reach out and kill this woman. Throttle her into the ground, wring her neck and watch the life fade from those cold eyes. Her words and tone were more than enough motivation for him to do so, but now she proposed stealing his vengeance as well? But he also knew that if she spoke the truth, the Imperative would not forgive him. If what she said was true, they were likely watching him closely, even right now. They were always around, always watching. A shadow that lurked around every corner. There was no telling who might be an agent. Or an assassin. He glanced around the empty tavern nervously. The barkeep? No, impossible.

He clenched his jaw and turned back to Hunter. ‘This is my mission. Instructions from the King of Mizzaro himself.’

A humourless chuckle met him in reply. ‘The young King doesn’t care. Have you heard? He is conducting his plans. Consumed by his work. It is all in motion. Imperative is very impressed by him. Maybe he even forget about you, huh?’

‘Even so—’

A hand reached from the shadows and laid a single obsidian coin on the table. A declaration. A black order. ‘I have my mission. I work with you, or I kill you. You decide. Quickly.’

Lance stared at the coin in dismay. It was all she needed to convince him that she spoke the truth. The black coin glared at him like a beckoning abyss. There was no escaping the weight of it, the gravity. He knew it all too well. He had no choice. Not really. He had been a part of the Imperative for far too long. He knew they were inevitable. Unavoidable. All he could do was obey.

He nodded his head in defeat and sat back down heavily in his seat.

‘Good. Smart man,’ Hunter cooed cheerily, picking the coin back off the table. ‘We will make good team. Now, you want drink?’

*

Hunter led Lance through the Rust. It was truly a miserable place and Lance felt it now more than ever. No sunshine penetrated this lower stratum, living forever in the shadow of the city above. Dust from the mines covered every surface; a persistent, unhealthy nuisance. Everyone walked with their faces to the ground, nobody even bothering to make eye-contact with the two strangers striding through their midst. Lance felt their misery in his own chest. He followed the confident stride of his guide with trepidation and loathing. He would like nothing more than to throw her off a railing and into the abyss of the mountainside, but he knew he couldn’t do it for fear of his own life.

I just have to bide my time, he thought. There’ll be an opportunity later. Perhaps even Carmel will rid me of her. Just thinking about his blood brother in this way made Lance uncomfortably angry at himself.

The assassins arrived at the transport to the upper levels. It was a strange contraption, consisting of a platform that was raised and lowered on a set of colossal metallic gears and pulleys. It gave one the feeling of being the bucket pulled and lowered into a well. It was the only one of its kind as far as Lance knew. A novelty unique to Mishna.

They rode the transport up to the commercial strata. There was an actual visible difference in this level of the city. It was just cleaner. Brighter. Merchants peddled their wares and welcomed potential customers with smiles and promises of deals. It was like walking into an entirely different city altogether, one not steeped in misery and broken dreams. You could only enter the city through the lowest strata, so this was the first time Lance had ever seen this side of Mishna, even having been here at least a handful of times before. He did not like this side of it. It reminded him too much of Voltare. It was too normal and ordinary. It was trying too hard to be like every other city in the world.

‘This way,’ Hunter instructed as Lance started to lag behind to take in the sights.

She cut through an alley between two shops. Lance followed along. They came out the other side of the alley into another one behind the shops. Here, Hunter paused and went over to the back door of one of the stores. She tested it and found it still open. She motioned with her head for Lance to follow, then entered the door. It led into a narrow corridor with a flight of stairs leading upwards. They climbed the stairs and entered into the loft above the store.

‘This was last place he came,’ Hunter informed Lance.

Lance surveyed the loft. It was a spacious room, but extraordinarily cluttered. It was a single room but it had been roughly partitioned into something resembling a residence using pieces of furniture. Lit by a single, low oil lamp and permeated by a deeply unpleasant, sour odour, Lance was not pleased to be here at all. By the entrance was a small common area or lounge, containing some sofas and a large, low table. Lance noted the state of uncleanness of it, with discarded bottles of alcohol and other assorted waste strewn all about, covering every available surface. There was a bed against the far wall, next to the window, indicating the bedroom section. Beside it stood a simple bedside table stacked high with books, a spilt bedpan on the floor that probably accounted for the stench, and a large wardrobe that served as a separating wall for a small study area. This contained nothing save a desk stacked with books, leaflets and notes, a thick, comfortable-looking armchair, and some bookshelves, which served to separate it from a small kitchen area.

Hunter walked around to the backside of one of the sofas that separated the lounge area from the bedroom and beckoned Lance over. He walked over and was not even slightly surprised to see the mutilated corpse that lay propped against it. The man had been tortured, it seemed. His fingernails had been removed, his face was a pulpy, cut-up mess, and he appeared to have been violently disembowelled and left to bleed out in that state.

Lance looked at Hunter, the grin on her face like that of a cat showing off its kill. ‘What’s the meaning of this? You brought me here to show off?’

‘This is one of the men prey came to speak to in city,’ she replied, the grin vanishing from her face. ‘He was the only useful one. Unfortunate for him.’

‘I know him,’ Lance replied coldly. ‘Rickard. He was a spy we sometimes utilized. His merchant status allowed him to travel the Kingdom extensively. Very helpful man. Well connected.’

‘I am sorry for killing friend,’ Hunter said, but there was no regret in her eyes.

‘He wasn’t. Carmel probably came here to procure aid or money. How long ago did you kill him?’

‘Only yesterday. It is why body hasn’t been discovered yet. It is very hard for prey to travel with a Aurelian baby. Very hard to stay hidden. It slow him down, or else he would be harder to hunt. He is only two, three days ahead of us.’

‘Then why are we wasting time here?’

‘It is no waste of time. We will catch him soon. We are faster.’ Hunter paused, as if she just remembered something. She walked away from Lance and the body wordlessly and went into the study area. She returned with a slip of paper in her hand, ‘You want to see this.’

She presented the paper to Lance. It was shipping invoice, securing travel for goods to be transported by ship to Camar. Lance looked the paper over carefully, then looked back up at Hunter, ‘So we assume he is on this ship?’

‘You tell me. You know him best.’

‘It would make sense,’ Lance said after some consideration. He took a seat on the back of the sofa, kicking a limp hand away from his boots so they wouldn’t dirty. ‘Bustavia and Camar are strong allies. He cannot hide in this Kingdom because it is too close to home. He knows I would find him. The next best place to hide would be across the ocean. Camar, or even Namaria. Or he could be trying to get lost in Zeshan, but is taking the long way around so he can shake anyone following.’

‘Exactly,’ Hunter smirked. ‘You could be hunter yourself.’

‘I’ve come this far haven’t I?’ Lance replied sarcastically.

‘He go to Camar. Not many Imperative in the Kingdom. From there, yes, maybe he go to Zeshan. Would be easy to disappear in free continent. Namaria also good choice, but also a lot of trouble. Kingdom trouble, raider trouble. He not go there. Either way, we catch him soon.’

Lance stroked his chin. ‘He must know he’s walking into a trap. One of my King’s Dukes, Lord Romeo, has travelled there to take control of the First Civilization site we uncovered there. Carmel was there when we did, though… He knows what it does. He knows Ciaran’s interest in it…’ Lance considered this information for a time silently. Hunter watched him patiently as he connected dots in his head. ‘I suppose he doesn’t have too many choices. We must get him before Romeo even learns of this. I don’t want that man to interfere.’

‘Ship leaves from Mórya in ten days. We will not make it by then,’ Hunter stated, her voice so matter-of-fact that she seemed bored simply by the fact of it all. ‘They will stop in Corvein Islands two days after and reach Camar in twelve. They get off ship in Juves. We will be one day behind the whole way and will catch him when we reach land again. This is the hunt.’

‘You seem to have thought this all through.’

‘This is the hunt,’ she repeated. She waved her hand dismissively. ‘I have to wait for you, otherwise, I would catch him already. But this is your hunt. I am simple tracker. I watch and help.’

‘Alright, Hunter, I’ll follow your lead then,’ Lance conceded. ‘I can’t deny your skills in this matter. Shall we leave immediately?’

‘It is pointless. Blizzard coming off Mahàlm’a in few hours. We get caught and it just slow us down. We will spend twilight here, leave in morning.’

‘What do you mean? There isn’t even any snowfall. Isn’t it more senseless to waste time?’

‘You are not Bustavian, you not understand. Blizzard is coming. Don’t worry, it slow down prey as well.’

To emphasize her point, she kicked off her boots and stretched out leisurely, again bringing to Lance’s mind the image of a cat. She walked towards the bed while disrobing along the way. There were far too many hidden knives pulled from places knives should not be.

‘You tired?’ she asked as she reached the bed and sat down on it. ‘You come to bed?’

‘I’m fine,’ Lance grunted, rolling his eyes.

‘You know, if we travel together you can’t call me “Hunter” always. It not sound good. You use my name, yes?’

‘Sure. What’s your name?’

‘Nitsa. It mean “huntress”. It where I get nickname, see?’

‘Yes, very clever.’

‘I teach you Aurelian, assassin. You will like it. Beautiful language.’

She took off her undershirt and lay back on the bed, closing her eyes and breathing deeply. Lance couldn’t help but stare at the scars on her body. They told a story of a harsh life, full of pain. He couldn’t help but wonder where she had gotten them. Missions with the Imperative? One of her “hunts”? There was a particularly vicious one across her stomach, just below the navel. The largest one she had by far. Another one across her left breast also drew the eye. Lance told himself that was the only reason.

It would be so easy to kill her here, he mused. She even got rid of her weapons.

He shook his head. Better to keep her around for now. She was useful. He sighed, took a last look at Rickard at his feet, and then walked into the study area where the stench wasn’t too bad because of a light breeze coming from the open window shutters. He spent some time cleaning his weapons, taking apart his light crossbow and sharpening his own collection of knives.

There was a massive blizzard that hit the city a few hours later. The city even rang its warning bells to tell citizens to remain indoors and bunker down. It irritated him greatly that Nitsa had been right. Eventually, tiredness did overcome him and he slept in the desk chair for a few hours. He dreamt of giant cats, stalking through vast forests, and of what he was going to do to Carmel when he caught him.