Year 1, Month 2, Week 1, Day 1

Azrael

Azrael was in the wilderness again, heading north. He wasn’t in any particular hurry. He had several days worth of dried rations, plus a tough waterskin that should last him at least that long. He had been worried that the water would grow moldy, but the shopkeeper he had bought the waterskin from threw in what she called a “Poseidic Cactus” for free. It looked like a spiky, green ball, but the needles were soft and didn’t poke Azrael when he held it. According to the shopkeeper, the way it worked was that when it was set in a source of water, it would consume a miniscule amount of water and feed on any impurities that grew in the water. He remembered that the shopkeeper had basically rushed him away from the waystation, as if she wanted him to be anywhere other than there. As he had walked away, he heard the shopkeeper tell the next person that nothing was for sale. Maybe it was the sword. That was the only thing that Azrael could figure, was that the presence of the sword he had attached to his back mysteriously without straps had affected his conversation. And, to be fair, the sword was intimidating. Just looking at it was enough to tell you that the wielder was associated with magic and death. And possibly the specific magic of necromancy. The more Azrael thought about it, the more he was sure that the lady behind the counter was terrified of him.

Oh, well. He couldn’t focus on that now. He was fairly sure there was a wolf following him. It hadn’t shown itself, but he had been hearing the howls for the past two nights. It was daytime at the moment. Probably about ten chimes if he had to guess. Looking around, he was on the road, but there was forest off to the east. That was where the howls were coming from. He shivered. Would he be able to take on a wolf? He was sure there was only one wolf, based on the howls, and that was supposedly indicative that the wolf was either sick or an outcast from a pack, but still… Would the sword be anything more than a club? It was just bone with some pointy bits, after all. He did have some magic. Azrael thought over his ability to launch bits of bone from his palms as a dangerous projectile; it was nice, but that might only work well at a distance, and he knew a wolf would want to get in close.

He shook off those thoughts. If he got to a city soon enough, or even a township, it would be a nonissue. Supposedly Thor’s Threshold was close, based off of the rough directions the shopkeeper had given him. It still wasn’t in sight. Then again, a couple days north of there was the town he grew up in.

A few more hours of walking and Azrael found himself being approached from behind. He turned to see who the source of the footsteps was and was greeted by a fist to his face. Azrael was knocked to the ground by the blow, but was up in a flash, dropping his supplies. His attacker was a dark-skinned, grey-haired man with silver eyes, who, ironically, wasn’t poised to continue attacking.

“That’s for being so hard to find!” the man chided, cracking his knuckles. Azrael opened his mouth to respond angrily, but then noticed a familiar bone sword slung across the man’s back. He decided differently and asked,

“Who are you, and why are you looking for me?”

“My name is Ananiel, and I’m here to kill you, as per Draeg’s orders. It’s the first of the new month and you haven’t submitted any new bodies.” Shit. Azrael looked around for some sort of safe place to dash to, but it was grasslands all around. There was the forest… “You won’t make it.” The other elavis said, his silver eyes flashing. “I’m good at what I do, and for me, the sword is just for show.”

“So you expect me to just lay down and let you kill me?” Azrael asked, starting to edge towards the forest. The older elavis held up his hand and said,

“Stop trying to escape; you’re embarrassing yourself and there’s nowhere to go. But to answer your question, no, I don’t want you to lay down and die, nor do I want to kill you. But most assuredly I will if you don’t cooperate.”

“So…” Azrael said, the proverbial wheels in his head turning, “you are here to kill me, but also to not kill me…?”

The man slapped his hand to his head. “You really haven’t read that contract through, have you?” Azrael smiled sheepishly in response. “Yeah, I didn’t think so. Well, you’re fortunate that I was the one who was sent. Consider me your savior. It’s time to kill someone.”

“Forget it.” Azrael said quickly. Even if there were people around to kill, why would I want to?”

“Uh, because you agreed to it. You made your mark on the contract, same as I did. That was the price for whatever you asked for. I’ll make sure you do offer a sacrifice today and I won’t have to kill you. Why are you being so squeamish about this? It’s not like you haven’t murdered before.”

“What??” Azrael asked, a bit bewildered. “Why would you just assume that I’ve killed someone before?”

“Murdered, not killed. Theres–there’s a difference. But no murder?” Azrael shook his head. “Torture?” another shake. “Conspiracy to murder? No? Knowingly hooking someone on addictive substances? Anything? Come on, kid, you don’t get eyes like ours by cheating in poker.”

“No, seriously, I’ve never had golden eyes.” The man squinted at him.

“Huh. Is that so? I’m betting Draeg thinks that you’ve committed some sort of atrocity. Elavis with silver eyes are much more… pliable, especially with the need most of the newer silvers have. Though, he does like to take normal elavis and pop their cherry, so to speak, as a sort of middle finger to the gods. They are willing to do things they wouldn’t do, had they golden eyes, not only because their guide is gone, but also because they’ve done bad things before.”

“How do you know that much about Draeg? He was set free only recently.”

“Oh, I’m immortal. He does that for some of his favored servants. I was around before Almaz was founded. My contract was put on hold while Draeg was dormant. He hired me as a strong-arm for contract-breakers.”

“Oh. And you’re going to make sure I don’t die today, what, out of the goodness of your heart?”

“I’ve done bad things, Azrael. Don’t look at me like that; I was told your name before being assigned to this hunt. The fact that I’ve done bad things before doesn’t mean I want to do them anymore if I don’t have to. That being said, Draeg doesn’t change his contracts very much, so you have a clause in yours that states that if you can submit the fresh corpse to Draeg before the assassin he sends to you actually kills you, he calls off the assassin until you are late again.”

“It looks like you might have to kill me, then. I’m not sure what sort of weak-willed people you usually deal with, but murder just isn’t okay in my book.”

“Yeah, that’s the feeling I got from you and that’s why I haven’t killed you, yet. The world needs more people who refrain from murder. Look, I’m going to leave for a bit. I want you to stay right here. Seriously, if you are even a hundred feet from this spot when I get back, I’m going to punch you once, in the face, for every hundred feet away you are from this location.”

“How long are you going to be gone?”

Ananiel tilted his head, listening for a moment. Azrael didn’t hear anything, but the elder elavis seemed to hear what he was listening for and so replied, “Four hours, no more.”

And with that, Ananiel walked towards the forest, getting smaller and smaller until he disappeared into the green expanse.

***

Over the course of the next few hours, Azrael sat down on the ground going over the things that had happened to him, making the attempt to make sense of at least something that he had seen. If he could just make one thing that had happened in the previous month be understandable, or at least fit together with another event, maybe he could make some headway with his own situation. The previous month he had a couple different interesting conversations regarding gods, one of which he tried to break down his encounter with one of Odin’s ravens. Really, he hadn’t gotten to spend the time until recently to try to figure out what the purpose of the raven was. The dwarf that could not be who he claimed to be, the not-dwarf from the not-clan, who disappeared after giving Azrael a possible explanation, seemed to think that the interaction with the raven (which he didn’t actually remember) was indeed a divine encounter, but that the raven was not, in fact, a god. Then later, in the sky when he watched the sacking of Almaz by the helwolves, there was a dragon that Draeg said had divine power, but didn’t think it was a god. Azrael considered that it might be worth noting that Draeg didn’t seem to blink at divine power. How powerful, exactly, did that make Draeg? Perhaps powerful enough to only be trapped and hidden away by a paladin order instead of destroyed outright. And the giant wolf-thing that led the helwolves, the one that Draeg identified as “Garm”, was fighting with the divinely-powered dragon on almost equal terms. What did it all mean?

As Azrael mulled these things over, he eventually came to the conclusion that what it meant, at least to him, were two things: one, that such events were likely to continue persisting in his life–Draeg certainly would be–and two, Azrael needed some way to defend himself from the divine, and from those that didn’t blink in the face of it.

He briefly thought to himself that Eden had an encounter similar to his encounter with the not-dwarf: she had a person up and disappear on her, as the dwarf had. That might have meant that she would have needed to find some sort of protection from the divine as well if it wasn’t for the fact that she was most likely dead.

Azrael bit his lip for a moment, trying to move onto the next thought. He didn’t want to dwell on what he had lost–it made him angry. Come to think of it, a lot of this made him angry. He couldn’t even confirm whether or not Eden and Sael were dead. It’s not like he could go back to the crater and sift through the ashes of Almaz–nothing he would find there would tell him who lived and who died, who escaped, and who didn’t. When he was at the waystation, he asked around, and the answer was all the same: “we just got here; our families are gone and none of us have met anyone who claims to have even seen the incident”.

But something had to be done. Azrael had only wanted to be left alone. He wanted peace. And, all of a sudden, all at once, an entire month of fucked up things happened to make sure he didn’t have that, and sure as hell his friends, whether living or dead, didn’t have peace.

Azrael looked up and saw Ananiel approaching, halfway back from the treeline, dragging a very-much-alive hobgoblin by the throat. Standing up, Azrael realized what he was going to do. If nothing else was coming together, then this, this was coming together.

Ananiel tossed creature out in front of him, flipped the hob over with his foot. and planted one boot on its chest when he reached Azrael and asked, “Do you understand, yet?”

“Yes, I do.” Azrael said, a fire finally burning in his chest. He had a workable answer. “Monsters. I can hire myself out to kill sentient monsters, buying myself time, and getting paid for it in the process. The money I earn can be used for… other things.”

The elder Elavis smiled. “That’s as good an answer as any.”

“Mmm-mmmnot a m-m-monster.” The hobgoblin pleaded from the ground, it’s yellow eyes and diamond pupils darting back and forth between the two elavis. “I’mmm green and warty, mmm-hmm, but I have friends and fammmily, honored angelfolk. I talk and have fammmily who will miss me.”

Ananiel kicked the hobgoblin, which let out a pitiful squawk. “And the human you knifed right as I came up on you probably had friends and family, too, but you didn’t allow him to crawl away, did you?”

“It was just one hummman!” the lump of green wailed. “I’ve never killed hummman before that, I swear!”

“I don’t believe you.” Ananiel said, contempt in his voice. “You were chuckling to the other goblins there that it was your twenty-sixth human scalp you were going to have collected! You wonder why I killed the rest of them? That’s why.”

“But I can prommmise! I can prommmise not to kill any more hummmans! I’ll–I’ll stay at twenty-six! Fae keep their prommmises!”

“Goblins from the twilightlands do, scum. You bear the lowborne behaviors of goblins born on the filth of this world. I can’t trust you any farther than I can kick you.” The hob continued to whine and plead, but Ananiel ignored it.

“So, Azrael,” Ananiel continued once the bleating of the hob died down, “Are you sure you can do this? The hob begs; they all beg, anything with a voice and words to speak them, after their power is taken from them will attempt to evoke the emotions of a person. Goblins, dragons, vampires, the lot of them have voices and prey upon people. So let me ask again, Azrael: do you understand?”

Azrael nodded. “I do understand.”

“Then slay monsters and you will have no cause to murder. Draw your sword and end the wretched creature’s life.”

“No!” the hob cried. “No, please! Mmmercy!” Azrael pulled his sword from his back and looked at it.

“Will I really have to beat him to death with this?” he asked, looking at the elder.

“You can use whatever method of killing you have available to you. But beat him to death?” the hob let out a whimper as Ananiel said this. “No, the sword itself is magical and will cut as well as any steel sword forged by a competent smith.” Azrael nodded, took the sword in two hands, the point facing down, and brought it down on the hob’s chest, piercing its heart and silencing its cries.

“Now, since you haven’t read the contract, take a moment and do so, so you can perform the necessary ritual.”

Azrael lifted his hand in dismissal. “I did see that bit, looking over it.”

“Read it more closely in the future.”

And so Azrael knelt down beside the corpse, took out his contract, and chanted the script that was written for this event.

“Draeg, Crafter of Servants and Student of Hecate, I devote this corpse to you and your craft for the purposes of your study and your use.” Azrael chanted this three times, and immediately after the third time, the hob’s body rose into the air, still horizontal, and a jet-black window opened up in the air and moved to envelop the corpse, on one side, the body, and on the other side, nothing, as the corpse passed into another area; only the blood spilt was left. The window closed as it finished, and Azrael stood up.

“That bought you a month.” Ananiel warned. “Use it wisely, and understand that I’m not the only assassin employed by Draeg. It likely won’t be me that finds you next time.”

“I’ll make sure there isn’t a next time.“ Azrael promised. “But since you are here, perhaps you can tell me something.”

“Perhaps.”

“How do I make my magic stronger?”

“Oh. That.” For a moment, Ananiel looked a bit awkward. “I can give you a little information, but I can’t tell you how to do it, since I don’t use it myself.”

“You don’t have magic? I thought it comes with the contract.”

Ananiel shook his head. “I have the magic. I don’t use the magic. I was an assassin long before I made the deal with Draeg, and so I rely on the abilities I’ve cultivated for myself.”

“Why?”

“So that if I piss Draeg off, he doesn’t cripple me if he takes the magic away.” Azrael’s eyebrows shot up.

“Can he do that?”

“The contract doesn’t say whether he can or can’t, but I’m not one to take that chance. Anyway, magic. You don’t have a lot of it. You’ll be able to do some magic that other casters can do, but most of your magic is osseomancy; the ability to manipulate bone. Mostly your bones. Supposedly you can pull out a good bit with no detriment to you, and your magic will replace any amount of bone you use, and will fix breaks and fractures much faster than normal. You can form bones out of nothing as part of a spell, but that is fairly difficult, I hear.

“Good to know.”

“Yeah, but remember, you don’t have a prodigious amount of magic to work with; you’re a henchman, not a wizard. A wizard might have a dozen spells to cast in a day, but you will likely only ever have one or two, though I’ve met a few that could cast as many as four. The rest of the time you’ll be using your usual magic to help you out; launching bolts of bone from your hands, manipulating your sword, and other things. How you do that is beyond me, though. I just know that you’re supposed to get more use out of the magic you’re given when you continually devote corpses to Draeg.”

Azrael smiled, hopeful about his future for once. “Thank you, Ananiel. You’ve helped me more than you know.”

“Don’t waste the second chance that I’ve given you.”

***

Ananiel left, and Azrael continued to walk until dark. He laid out under the stars and briefly wondered what he would do if the weather decided to turn to rain. As usual, the howls started up, sounding closer than ever. He kicked himself, as he had in the previous nights, for not buying a tinderbox while he was at the waystation.

Unlike other nights, though, the wolf showed itself. It was a quiet enough night to where Azrael heard the wolf the second it broke the treeline, its paws thudding against the grass. Azrael looked up from where he was laying and immediately understood why he could hear the wolf so easily from where he was at. In the light of the stars and the moon, the wolf’s grey form stood out very visibly against the dark forest behind it, and the form that Azrael saw was enormous. It was easily twice the size of the largest dog he’d ever seen.

The man leapt to his feet, grabbing his sword on the way up, and looked around. As much room as he had on all sides, there was nowhere to go. No trees, no large rocks, nothing. Just short, scruffy grass that would be all too happy to drink up whatever blood was spilt on it. Azrael resisted the urge to run–dogs would chase things that ran, and Azrael felt that a wolf would be every bit as inclined to do so.

Azrael reached a hand out and launched a shaft of bone at the oncoming wolf. It let out a surprised and pained yelp, caught off guard, as the shaft thudded against the chest of the wolf and shattered, stopping it in its tracks about thirty feet away from Azrael. He knew that thirty feet would be nothing for this wolf, and that the large canine would be on him in a flash.

Recovering from its surprise, the wolf paced a slow circle around Azrael, planning for the best opportunity to lunge with the least amount of resistance. It’s lips were pulled back, revealing sharp, dangerous teeth. The snarls it let out sent shivers down Azrael’s spine.

Azrael shot another bolt of bone at the wolf, leading the shot slightly, so the wolf wouln’t take off to outpace it, but instead the wolf balked, the bolt passing harmlessly in front of it and it lunged before Azrael could come up with another plan. The jaws, aimed for the elavis’ throat, were stopped as Azrael brought his sword up just in time to catch the maw; one hand held the handle and the other hand braced the end of the blade on the smooth, harmless side of the sword. The weight of the animal knocked Azrael back a few feet and nearly knocked him off of his feet entirely.

The wolf, having just been poked in the mouth by the vertebrae-spines of the sword let go of the blade and lunged under it. In that moment, Azrael raised his arm, thinking of nothing else but his need for armor. The wolf bit down on Azrael’s forearm, but found itself biting down on bone, yet again, as Azrael’s shoulders, forearms, thighs, and shins were suddenly clad in bone, that, unfortunately, didn’t give quite enough protection, as his newfound armguard cracked with a loud snap, that Azrael realized with no small amount of pain, was also one of the bones of his forearm.

The wolf, wasting no time, twisted its great head, yanking Azrael off of his feet and onto the ground beside the beast, dropping his sword in the process. Azrael rolled quickly over onto his back and the wolf, waiting for this very thing, lunged again for the soft flesh that now had no sword to protect it. Something clicked in Azrael’s mind and he brought up his one good arm, willing his bones to shift and shape as he needed them, and, in the moment the wolf’s slavering jaws came down on his arm, the wolf found itself impaled through its head, chest, and gut by long, thick, uneven spikes that protruded from Azrael’s chest. The spikes withdrew back into their owner, and the wolf fell over, dead.

Hurt and bleeding, Azrael was drained; he knew he wouldn’t be able to shape his bones again until the next day, but he could feel a trickle of magic running through him, beginning the process of repairing his broken arms. His right arm, as expected, didn’t hurt from the teeth wounds, he noted.

Azrael just laid onto the rough grass, laughing audibly to no one in particular; loud, joyous laughter. Now, he was getting somewhere. Now he had something to hope for. He would slay monsters. The more he killed, the better he’d get at it, and, eventually, he’d slay progressively bigger ones.

Things were finally looking up.