Harpis regretted the expense of the next day’s ship from Ravnice to Tuath. He also lamented the price of renting a horse that morning to make the trip to the Hall, but the spent silver had allowed him to make up considerable time. He resisted the urge to outright look for Wren as he made his way out of Tuath city and to the northern road to the Hall.

He decided he would spend the night in one of the transient rooms and catch up with the other bards to maximize the amount of information he might get from this excursion.

Arriving at the front doors of The Hall as daylight began turning to dusk, he was shaken by the quiet. There wasn’t anyone playing music or singing songs. There wasn’t anything.

Harpis dismounted his horse and pushed open the great doors to the main concert hall. His skin prickled as the only sound he heard was the creaking of the doors coming to a stop.

He thought of calling out, but the hair standing up on the back of his neck encouraged him to maintain some amount of stealth. He made his way to the Impresario’s quarters in hopes that he could at least gain some information to take back with him.

Thumbing through the pile of parchments on Benali’s desk, he found a note from Myrlman Tuath. The message was nothing short of an order to Benali to use his bards to spread the news to every city that Mer had perpetrated his father’s murder and his attempted kidnapping.

He made his way out onto the third-floor balcony and took in the evening sun and the song of the wind rushing up the giant cliff face from the sea.

Looking down at the water from the balcony railing, the sight that greeted him took his breath away. In the sheltered bay at the base of the cliffs were some sixty ships moored in a giant flotilla. They appeared to be navy vessels with Tuath banners flying from their masts and Tuath seals on their sails.

Distracted by the surprising sight, Harpis almost did not hear the door creak behind him or the man speaking to him.

“Well, well, looks like we have ourselves an unwelcome visitor!” said an unknown voice.

Harpis spun around, putting his back against the railing of the balcony. Two uniformed militiamen from Tuath approached him, sword and spear pointed his way menacingly. He guessed they were here to make sure people did not wander in and see the giant naval force like he just did.

“Just a lost bard, I was looking for the Impresario, no need to be hasty here, boys,” he offered.

“Lost indeed, but soon to the sea, unfortunately. We are under strict orders regarding people snooping around this building. Your choice, fly like a bird of your own volition or be cut down and have your corpse suffer the same fate.”

Instead of jumping from the balcony, he faced them fully and set his feet.

“I reckon this will be more fun than listening to you scream the whole way down!” the swordsman to Harpis’ left yelled as they ran in.

With adrenaline roaring through his veins, they seemed to move slowly, raising the sword, and pulling back the spear to strike in unison. Harpis threw his forearms into the swordsman’s upraised arms, blocking high to keep the man from chopping him down while stepping around him swiftly.

Once behind the swordsman, he exerted his weight against the man’s shoulder blades while holding the sword arm above the attacker’s head.

The move rolled the man’s arm downward, forcing him to bend over with his sword arm fully extended, sword uselessly away from his body.

The spear wielder, now with his partner between Harpis and himself, missed wide.

Harpis yanked the man’s wrist lower, causing him to step forward in pain.

He simultaneously kicked the bent swordsman as hard as he could in the back, sending the man into and over the balcony.

The swordsman’s screams lasted for what seemed an age as the man with the spear became much more cautious and measured. The spearmen circled Harpis, who once again had his back to the railing. He thought of going for the knife in his boot but was not sure it would offer much of an advantage to the other man’s six-foot-long spear.

Harpis had another idea, one he liked only slightly more than sure death. He put his hands on his hips and taunted the man. Years on a fishing vessel had made him quite proficient at slinging curses and stinging remarks, and soon, the man roared at him and charged the mouthy bard.

As the man rushed in, Harpis’ hand went to his left hip and unhooked the belt. When the boat hook hit the ground, he quickly kicked with his heel, sinking it into the wood of the railing post. The man was soon upon him. He reacted by grabbing the man’s spear and pulling them both over the edge of the railing.

The man flew past screaming. Harpis was spun twice from the rope unwinding around his waist before his breath was squeezed out of him by the belt noose halting his fall. Thinking it best not to look down, Harpis scrambled up the rope. While he climbed, he thought to himself that it might have been wise at some point before this moment to have tested the integrity of his makeshift belt.

Coming over the railing and back onto the balcony, he saw Maestro Bravit step onto the balcony. Seeing no weapon in Bravit’s hands, he went to a knee and drew his knife just in case. Remaining in a kneeling position, defensively clutching his knife, he tried to steady himself.

“Peace! Harpis! Peace!” Bravit said, not coming any closer and holding his hands up. “They were here to babysit me, and there were only the two of them.”

Harpis slowly sheathed his knife back into his boot and stood. “Bravit, what in the world is going on here?”

Bravit looked Harpis up and down curiously before answering. “Dealt with those two goons right efficiently, didn’t you? I expected to find the idiots gloating over a corpse when I got up here.”

Harpis’ mind raced for an excuse for a long moment before looking back at Bravit. “Years fighting drunk sailors on the Kalt wharf, those two northerners didn’t stand a chance.”

The portly bard snorted. “I do recall quite the rough crowd when I would spend time in the south during my nomadic years.”

Bravit peered back into the Impresario’s quarters almost mournfully. “The governor tried to demand we use the bards to further his machinations. Before objecting, Benali ordered all the bards to leave, and The Hall closed for at least a few months. He wanted to avoid people viewing us as favoring one side or the other regarding this whole Mer situation or being utilized for nefarious reasons.”

Harpis looked around the quiet and empty grounds. “What are you still doing here then?”

Raking his hand through his dark curls, Bravit sighed in disappointment.

“Benali told me to stay and keep the place from falling over, and he left for the city to be with his cousin. I am not sure what is going on in his head, Harpis. Written on his face of late has certainly been an inner struggle. His cousin and his loyalties to this city-state have been at war for his will. Shortly after Benali left, those two idiots showed up to keep an eye on me.”

Bravit walked to the balcony’s edge. Standing by Harpis, he shook his head as he looked over the railing where Harpis had sent the attackers tumbling down the cliffs.

“Myrlman Tuath is a paranoid one. I tell you truly, Harpis. I’ve no idea what the flotilla below is for, but I am thinking they will be spilling blood wherever their course is,” he explained in a warning tone while looking back at Harpis.

Harpis put a hand on the maestro’s shoulder. “Bravit, if more Tuath militiamen come after those two, say that an agent of Mer showed up looking for information and that they’d chased them into the countryside.”

Bravit let out a low laugh. “Not like they’d believe me if I told them poor, old, unarmed, lute-playing Bravit killed them both and threw them over the cliffs!”

Harpis chuckled with the man. “Bravit, if you don’t mind, I might catch a short rest up here before heading back. I will lock the Impresario’s quarters and stay out here on the balcony in case someone comes around in the night. I will be gone at morning’s light, and I will leave the horse, so you have ample evidence about the agent from Mer. I’d do my best to stay off the main road anyway.”

*****

The following day in Tuath, Wren arrived in the city and made straight for the diocese. Knocking on the domed building’s door, he glanced around, looking for anyone paying too much attention to him. It seemed to him that the city itself was tense with anticipated conflict and bubbling anger.

A young cleric answered the door and glanced Wren up and down suspiciously. “Our Lady’s blessing to you this good morning, sir, can I help you?”

Wren gave him a short bow. “My Mistress’ blessing to you, cleric of Daybreak, please, be a good lad and fetch the vicar for me.” Confused, the cleric looked around and nodded, slowly closing the door.

A few moments later, the door opened again, and the vicar stood, perplexed at his cleric’s description of their visitor. “Ahh, I see,” he said, patting the cleric’s back. “A pleasant day to you, Death Speaker,” the vicar said. He then turned to the priest. “We don’t get such visitors very often, but this is a senior necromancer. He worships Our Lady’s sister.”

The vicar turned back to Wren. “To what do we owe the honor?”

Wren gave another short bow, this time to the vicar. “Please, Wren is fine. I come at the behest of The Herald. Rare is it for such atrocity to visit a city governor, and we wanted to offer an attempt at communing. Perhaps we may find some information to aid in bringing justice for his soul in The Great Dream.”

The vicar seemed pleased at the offer. “But of course, we would be thrilled to observe a necromancer at work.”

Wren stepped inside the diocese with the two men. “I just need to know where his body spent the most time since death prior to being burned.”

“Right this way,” the vicar said as he took Wren down to the second basement mortuary and bid the young cleric gather any of the others about the diocese to observe Wren at work. “I must tell you something odd about this man’s death if you can swear on your Lady to secrecy.”

Wren nodded at the man. “I swear it.”

“Our autopsy found he had a large amount of poison in his blood, enough to kill several men, despite his throat being also slit,” the vicar whispered.

Wren gave the man a surprised look and a raised eyebrow. He knew he could trust the medical methods of the clerics and decided this might be quite the interesting question and answer of the man’s spirit if he could contact it.

Wren’s instincts made him more than a little uncomfortable at the thought of going deep into a prayer trance with so many around him as he noted the dozen or so clerics now gathered in the basement mortuary,

He reached into the air and pulled his scythe from it to several wide-eyed looks. When he snapped his fingers, and Xissay came screaming out of the sulfuric smoke over his shoulder, hands engulfed in flame, the entire room recoiled, and one of the men let out a shriek.

“Xissay!” Wren commanded, and she came to a halt floating in the air in front of the gnome.

Wren shook his head at her, and her shoulders slumped at the missed opportunity for some mayhem.

“I uh, need my familiar here to channel my prayers to The Sleeper,” Wren offered to no objection.

Xissay rolled her eyes at Wren and took up a position floating over his shoulder. He climbed on the stone mortuary pedestal in the middle of the room where the governor’s body had lain before funeral rites ceremoniously sent his soul to The Great Dream.

He sat cross-legged with his scythe laying across his lap and began praying to The Sleeper, slowly rocking side to side. When he opened his eyes again, Wren saw the room devoid of color and bathed in grey save Xissay’s bright red hair and purple eyes. Being undead, she was more of this plane than the living one. Slowly the incorporeal white form of a handmaiden approached him, pausing a few feet away.

“A question for Seulman Tuath,” Wren said to the spirit, which nodded in return and faded away.

In the realm of the living, the clerics just heard mumbles and saw Wren’s slow swaying.

A moment later, the bristly memory of Seulman Tuath’s spirit appeared before the gnome.

“How did you die?” Wren felt the outpouring of his gift, channeled through his scythe, shake his whole body as he asked.

To the clerics watching, the lantern-lit room seemed to grow almost entirely dark.

The spirit fought angrily against Wren’s command but eventually succumbed to the gnome’s will.

“Poison,” was all it whispered.

“Who?” he asked. The spirit battled his will even harder, and Wren could not hold his concentration as he wondered why someone cut the man’s throat after his poisoning.

The gap in concentration allowed the spirit to steal itself back into the eternal dream, and Wren opened his eyes to the silent and gawking crowd of clerics around him. “Seulman Tuath’s spirit is as incorrigible in death as he was alive. I am sorry, friends, but I could not command him to answer.”

The clerics and vicar especially looked more than a little disappointed. “Thank you for at least trying, Death Speaker.”

Wren climbed off the pedestal and met Xissay’s gaze. She, in turn, gave him a doubting look and rolled her eyes again as he dismissed her. He thanked the clerics again for letting him try and apologized for not offering them anything. Once outside, he made his way for the North Winds Tavern to wait for Harpis.

*****

Wren had been sitting inside for several hours when Harpis finally arrived, panting and sweaty. The man plopped down out of breath across from the gnome and asked the server for water.

He gave Harpis a concerned look. “There are these things called horses, you know?”

After guzzling the whole glass of water and asking for another before the server could even leave, Harpis shook his head and took a long breath to steady himself. “Had to return on foot, couldn’t trust the roads. I think we have a big problem.”

Wren laced his fingers together on the table. “I learned some troubling news as well,” Wren said in a quiet and mumbling tone. “It seems the governor died from poison, and someone slit his throat after. I am still trying to make sense of it.”

He became more somber and shook his head slightly in resignation. “Also, we will not have to inquire after Eiyna. She was the victim of a murder some nights ago. Someone painted a message from Mer in her blood on the wall of the inn where she worked. The governor ousted all his father’s staff for fear of spies from Mer, and she took a job out in the city. Her murder is all these folks in this bar have seemed to talk about since I got here.”

Harpis leaned in across the table, sliding a parchment to Wren. It was a note from Myrlman, demanding Benali Tuath be at his side for a war meeting at the naval docks in Tuath, taking place later that night.

“I think we should see if we can listen in,” Harpis said, burning the parchment.

Wren sat back in his chair, crossing his arms. “That is risky business, Harpis, and we’ve no other help in the north now, but I fear you are right. We must know what they are up to.”

Harpis leaned in again. “It’s worse than that, I counted some sixty naval ships tied together in the bay at Bard’s Hall, and in case you haven’t noticed, it looks like they still have half their known navy still sitting here in the Tuath harbor.”

Wren seemed to cringe. “Sleeper below us, you’re telling me Tuath has upwards of eighty or a hundred naval ships? It looks like we will indeed be doing some sneaking this evening before getting out of here.”

*****

It was over an hour after nightfall when the Tuath navy and militia leaders gathered with Sirul and Benali. They crowded on the second floor of the naval headquarters building, which sat on the harbor.

The windows were all open to let in the cooling humid air of the tropical autumn night. Harpis had no trouble hearing what the men said. He was primarily concerned with staying quietly in place on the slippery clay tiled roof of the building that was surrounded on three sides by the harbor waters.

Wren and Xissay sat on the roof across the street, watching Harpis cling desperately to his perch.

The sprite sat on Wren’s shoulder and whispered into his ear, “Didn’t know he was an experienced thief, better he than your ancient bones and joints complaining up there, giving you away.”

Wren’s face wrinkled. “I don’t think he has ever done this before, to be honest.”

Xissay gave Wren a bewildered look and raised both eyebrows as she stared at Harpis prone on the other roof. “What could go wrong?”

Wren shrugged hopelessly.

*****

Harpis listened in while a man’s voice reported to those in the room. “The twenty ships carrying out the mission to the south departed yesterday morning and should arrive at their destination sometime tomorrow.”

Harpis could hardly believe it. That meant the sixty ships he had spotted from The Bards Hall balcony were all together in addition to the known Tuath naval forces.

Straining, he could barely hear the response. “I expect a full report of the outcome of our little raid as soon as the men return!”

“Of course, governor,” the first man snapped.

Harpis did not presume twenty ships would do much against the already on edge Mer. On the other hand, hitting Ravnice or Kalt with such a force could undoubtedly be impactful. He lamented that he could not give Aanaman a timely warning with the ships already gone and hoped Ravnice was not the intended target.

He was pulled from his thoughts by Myrlman’s raised voice as he spoke to the others in the room. “Gentlemen, how many ships and men do I have at my command?”

“We have seventy-eight ships still in the north. All are fully crewed,” the admiral answered proudly.

The militia captain followed suit. “There is a growing feeling among Tuath of fearing Mer. There is also anger at your family having been so casually attacked and insulted. These emotions have led to record numbers of applications to the militia. With the reserves called up and the new men, we have roughly fifteen thousand men.”

Harpis silently let out an exclamation. Tuath now had a navy over twice the size of Mer’s, even with twenty ships supposedly already deployed south. Its men would now just outnumber the militias of Kalt, Ravnice and Mer combined. As Myrlman voiced his approval, Harpis found it odd he had yet to hear Benali speak.

The voices inside became hushed as they started discussing some other plan, and as he strained to hear them, Harpis accidentally kicked one of the tiles with his boot. The tile loudly cracked in half, and the voices below him went silent.

“A spy!” Came the cry from below.

Thinking quickly, Harpis grabbed a loose tile and threw it over the peak of the roof towards the street in front of the building. Letting go of his grip, he drew his knife from his boot and hoped that Trilia had been accurate in her accounting of its enchantment. He stabbed himself in the arm and held the blade tip in as he rolled off the roof.

The silence around him was thankfully complete as he fell the two stories to the water and splashed into it without making a single sound. The Tuath men rushed out onto the street and did not see the silent, human-sized shadow fall from the roof into the bay.

The feeling of the knife feeding off the life in his blood was surreal. He could feel his heartbeat slowing and becoming more labored the longer it pierced his skin. As he hit the water, he pulled the tip from his arm and began swimming underwater until his breath would not hold.

He wondered how long it would take for the knife to kill him if he had let it continue to nourish its enchantment from his blood. The thought made him shudder as he swam quietly down the shore away from the commotion.

*****

Watching the catastrophe unfold from the other roof, Xissay began wringing her hands in anticipation of a battle, her fingers glowing ember red as she did. Wren held up a hand to calm her and pulled his scythe from the air while murmuring.

Down the street, the fresh corpse of an alley cat suddenly lifted itself out of a garbage pile and shot hissing and meowing across the road in front of the naval building before turning up another street and falling once again lifeless.

Wren stopped his chant just in time to hear one of the men below.

“It was just a damn cat,” the man said as they returned to the building.

Wren turned to Xissay. “If you wouldn’t mind floating down and letting our bumbling idiot of a friend know, I will meet him at the merchant docks. Tell him to get dried off. We will book a room at a wharf-side inn and make south on a ship in the morning.”

The sprite gave him a dissatisfied look. “All the things you could have beckoned, and you went with a bloated corpse of an alley cat?”

Wren shrugged at her. “The entirety of Tuath is on edge and ready to march to war. I think making it look like it was just a cat would be better than tipping the entire city-state into hysteria. Letting you catch a house on fire or me call forth the corpses of dead men to distract them from catching Harpis was unnecessary.”

Xissay floated off to find Harpis with a dismissive wave of her hand. “You are no fun. Maybe we’d scare some sense into these foolish humans.”