Killstreak Book One

by Stuart Thaman

  Their boots sloshing through the muck and grime, the three trudged onward without complaint. There were several other cities besides Darkarrow, some of them quite large and opulent, farther to the north, and travelers sharing the road passed by rather frequently. Most of them hauled finished goods, typically barley wine, in heavy oxcarts that left deep ruts in the mud and stone. As the Lord of Darkarrow, Kadorax had once sent a group of his workers to try and repair the road, but it had been pointless. All the barrels of ale that came down the road had quickly undone all the repairs his men had made.

  There were a few roadside inns along the path, none of them reputable or conforming to any sense of comfort whatsoever. Kadorax led them to one such establishment to spend the night.

  “We’re not staying at the usual spot?” Syzak asked.

  “Not tonight,” Kadorax answered. “Too many of my own assassins spend their nights at The Blue Ax. I’d like to make it into Darkarrow unannounced.”

  “I don’t know if switching inns along the road will be enough,” Syzak said honestly. In truth, he had the sneaking suspicion that they had already been seen by one of Darkarrow’s sentries.

  Kadorax nodded in agreement. “If any of them learned anything from me, we’ve been followed since Virast.”

  “Might as well make the best of it, then,” Brinna added.

  The inn Kadorax had chosen was the roughest of them all, featuring nightly brawls, all manner of debauchery, and the occasional murder. The only redeeming quality of the place was that they let out their rooms for free so long as the patrons bought a few mugs of beer before turning in. Kadorax didn’t have many coins in smaller denominations than gold, just a few pieces of copper he had gotten from one of the sailors aboard the Grim Sleeper, but chances were the owner wouldn’t bother to notice his lack of patronage.

  Luckily, it was still too early in the night for the tavern to be crowded with travelers, so Kadorax bought one round at the bar and claimed a room at the back of the building.

  In the morning, the three adventurers were the first patrons awake. “We’ll be at Darkarrow before nightfall,” Kadorax stated as they emerged from the building, boots squishing in the mud.

  “Why do I keep getting the feeling that we’re willfully walking into our own demise?” Brinna asked. “I don’t even have my weapons…”

  “We’ll be fine,” Kadorax said confidently. Though he was being sincere, he knew his words were far from comforting.

  He didn’t notice the first sentry shadowing his movements until he was just barely within sight of the Darkarrow compound. The man, covered in dirt and leaves off to the side of the narrow trail branching from the main road, had sneezed. Kadorax smirked to himself, careful not to expose his own awareness, and wondered if the low-level scout would be beaten upon his return to the Blackened Blades. When he had been in charge, the scouts had always worked in pairs and had always been eager to expose the shortcomings of their partners in hopes of gaining an advantage in the cutthroat world of murder-for-hire.

  Still smiling to himself, Kadorax decided not to rat out the hapless scout, though it did make him cringe to think that Darkarrow had fallen to the point of using untrained initiates to watch their roads. They reached the perimeter of the estate with the scout still tailing them. The outer wall, only eight feet tall and made of stacked stones, gave way to a large, open courtyard where anyone approaching would easily be seen before they ever neared the door.

  Emerging into plain view, Kadorax let out a deep sigh. He was happy to be home, but also felt a pang of sorrow that he wouldn’t be staying. His memories were emboldened by the fact that most of Darkarrow had not changed in his absence. The estate was large and low to the ground, illuminated sparsely by torches on the interior of the wall and near the entrances, just as he had left it.

  “Not any further,” the scout said behind the group. Brinna was the only one who reacted with any amount of surprise.

  Kadorax turned, his eyebrows raised. “Allergies?” he asked sarcastically.

  The man’s face went white with fear. “You—”

  “Don’t worry,” Kadorax reassured him. “I won’t say anything. I’m just trying to get in to see whoever it is leading the Blackened Blades these days. Care to walk us to the door?”

  The man gulped, but he quickly stepped ahead to lead the way nonetheless.

  Unlike the days of Kadorax’s tenure, the front door was not rigged with a poisoned crossbow bolt. In rather mundane fashion, the scout simply knocked four times, and then the door was opened. Another man, perhaps even more a novice than the first, answered.

  “Get the boss,” the nervous scout said. The other man nodded before disappearing deeper into the complex.

  A few minutes silently passed before anyone else came to the door. “Please, come in,” a level four rogue beckoned.

  The three adventurers stepped into the dark, dreary room just beyond the entrance. It was far from a proper foyer, and it was so much the opposite of the grand entry at the priory in Oscine City that any knight accidentally stumbling upon it would have figured it for nothing more than an abandoned home. Everything was shrouded in gloom. Only a pair of paintings hung on the walls, both of them depicting bloody executions, and there were no tapestries or carpets, no statues or busts. Even the floor beneath their feet creaked with every step, and whole planks of it were missing outright in the corners.

  “Ah, Jaczkz,” Kadorax said. The assassin standing in the room was tall and clothed in pitch-black leather armor, the edges of which were trimmed in silky feathers and fine thread. “I’m glad to see you. It has been too long.”

  “Kadorax?” the assassin questioned. He scanned Kadorax’s character sheet just above his head to make sure. “Ha! You’re back! I hope you don’t intend to retake your position, my friend.”

  “I would never,” Kadorax said warmly. His thought derailed for a split second as he realized he had lied, but he carried on regardless. “I’m glad to see someone capable like yourself in charge of my glorious brethren.”

  Jaczkz shook his head, looking dismayed. “I was the only one of a respectable level they left behind to watch over Darkarrow while so many are deployed against the Gar’kesh. I’m basically in charge of nothing. Elise has command of the Blackened Blades now. I trust you remember her.”

  “Elise?” Kadorax repeated, hoping desperately that he had heard Jaczkz incorrectly. “Who let that happen?”

  Jaczkz had visibly relaxed, discharging all the tension from the room. “When you went missing, she was the first to scramble for leadership. Two others challenged her, at least as far as I heard, and she killed them both. So there you have it. Elise has command of the Blackened Blades.”

  Kadorax groaned. Of all the skilled assassins he had previously overseen, Elise was perhaps the one who harbored the most hatred for him on a personal level.

  “I assume Elise won’t be eager to see your return?” Brinna asked.

  To her side, Syzak scoffed. “Elise tried to kill him twice.”

  “I can deal with her later,” Kadorax added. “How many have departed for Skarm’s Reif?”

  Jaczkz spread his arms out wide to indicate the lack of activity in Darkarrow. “Almost everyone has gone. There are thousands of jackal packs all over Agglor. Some of them have started summonings of their own, though the beast you fought was by far their strongest. If Agglor is going to survive, we’ll need everyone we can get, even the knights.”

  “Saving Agglor would be nice and all, but the experience points we’d earn slaying a handful of Gar’kesh would be insane,” Syzak said.

  Brinna didn’t look so confident or eager. “If everyone went out to Skarm’s Reif to fight, they probably didn’t leave many weapons behind, did they?”

  “Not much,” the assassin replied. “Darkarrow is a ghost town.”

  “Well, we’re heading to Skarm’s Reif next,” Kadorax said. “The temple where we died is the ultimate goal, but we heard in Coldport that the Gar’
kesh had moved on to other villages, rampaging through the countryside. Where was it last seen?”

  Jaczkz rummaged through a short bureau, one of the only pieces of furniture in the dark room, and pulled out a torn bit of scroll. “This was the last report, though it’s a week old now. We were going to burn it tonight with a few other missives, but it’s yours if you need it.”

  Kadorax read over the report quickly and handed it back. “The Gar’kesh is still pretty far north. We’ll focus on the jackal temples and hideouts around Skarm’s Reif.”

  “I’d offer to send more assassins with you, but we need at least one person to stay here and await your return,” Jaczkz said.

  “Ha, I don’t think I’ll be taking over the Blackened Blades again, my friend,” Kadorax told him. “I just need to pay a visit to my old room and recover a few things, then we’ll be on our way.”

  The rest of Darkarrow was just as drab and dreary as the entryway. Jaczkz led the three through Darkarrow to the room Elise had claimed as leader at the back of the compound. Kadorax had been the one who had selected the room a long time ago. Returning there was bittersweet. Part of him hated not being in charge—and an even larger part hated that Elise had been the one to take his title—but there was still a bit of relief that came from only being a visitor.

  The room was still much like Kadorax had left it, even down to the traps rigged in the ceiling above the door. Inside, the bed, dresser, knife rack, and other fixtures were still in their places. “Well, she took the obvious weapons,” he said.

  A layer of dust on the back edge of the dresser told him that Elise hadn’t discovered the small cache he had hidden. He reached behind it, pushed aside a false bit of wood, and plucked a key from a small hook. Inside the dresser’s bottommost drawer was a tiny little panel. Kadorax moved it aside to reveal a keyhole, then pushed the key all the way to the back of the lock. “Right, left, right,” he remembered aloud. A clicking noise came from behind the dresser, and then a little wall cubby in the back of the drawer released from its chains by an inch, allowing enough room for Kadorax to get his fingertips inside and pull it open.

  “Everything is still here,” he said. “But I hadn’t left much inside. Just some essentials.” He pulled out a leather pouch with fifty gold pieces, a pair of small, poisoned darts, and a single curved knife built in the classic style of the Blackened Blades. Running his finger over the knife’s hilt, he gave it a moment of reminiscence before handing it to the rogue.

  “Thanks,” she said, holding it gingerly like some relic from a holy temple.

  “Just be careful with it. You won’t want to keep it in your boots. The blade itself is obsidian, and it has a pretty nasty enchantment. Stick it in someone for longer than a second or two and you’ll heal from it,” Kadorax explained.

  Brinna’s eyes grew wide. She focused on the weapon to read the official details of the magical enhancement:

  Talon Dagger - Rune slots used: 1 of 1. Theft of Life Rune: Rank 9 - Penetration into living flesh for more than 1.4 seconds casts Theft of Life on the target, draining their life and transferring it to the wielder for up to 6 seconds. Effect: profound. Cooldown: 1 day.

  “I… I can’t accept this,” Brinna said. “It must be worth a fortune.”

  Kadorax nodded. “Oh, it is. Just be careful with it. If you accidentally cut yourself enough to activate the rune, I don’t really know what will happen. And the blade’s too small for combat anyways. Talon daggers are made for close, quiet assassinations. Keep it on your belt until someone gets close and you need it.”

  The three adventurers didn’t hang around Darkarrow much longer. They shared a brief farewell with Jaczkz, took some food from the cellar, then hit the road. Virast was too far to make the trip in a single day, but Kadorax kept them moving late into the night. He wanted to be back on the Grim Sleeper and heading for Skarm’s Reif as soon as possible. As far as he was concerned, every minute spent away from the front lines in the war against the jackals was time wasted.

  A bit of rain fell as they neared closer to the city in the early morning haze. The clouds were low, dark and brooding, with pregnant undersides that threatened a storm.

  Lord Percival was awake and at the railing when they returned to the ship. He still wasn’t standing, but his spirits had greatly improved, and that was progress. “We’re off to Skarm’s Reif, is it?” he asked. A few days of resting in a hammock to recover had taken a toll on his voice, making it come out raspy and dull, a stark contrast to his usually bright demeanor.

  “That’s the closest port to the jackals’ territory. The Gar’kesh is still much farther north, close to their highest temple. The other jackals, though—they’ve been performing summoning rituals of their own all around Skarm’s Reif. The Blackened Blades and the Priorate Knights have joined forces there as a basecamp of sorts. They’re making expeditions into the jackal temples,” Kadorax explained.

  “Without my warlock, I’m not sure where my crew will be needed,” the captain said sullenly. “We can’t really accept bounties unless we hire on a crew of mercenaries, and I don’t have much capital left.”

  “I’m sure there will be shipping contracts to support the war effort,” Kadorax told him.

  The captain shook his head, wincing at the pain that shot up from his hips as he moved. “You’re probably right, but the Grim Sleeper has never really been a shipping vessel. Not recently, at least. I need to start choosing combat talents when I level,” he said.

  The Grim Sleeper cast off from the docks of Virast right as the storm brewing overhead began in earnest. The rains pounded down on the top deck, and peals of thunder made the mast shake. Fortunately, the storm was relatively localized over the city. The ship sailed slowly away from the tumult, rocking side to side in the swells, until it found calmer waters an hour or so later.

  “You’ve been to Skarm’s Reif more recently than I have,” Lord Percival said to Kadorax below deck. They only had a few candles burning since two had fallen from the table and been extinguished in the rainwater sloshing around at their feet. “The maps have two approaches. One, the western channel, is closer. The eastern approach is probably cleaner. How difficult is the west?” He pointed to a section of the map labeled with a heavy amount of coral and a sand barge jutting out beyond the bay.

  Kadorax had to think back to his previous life. “I don’t think I’ve ever bothered to pay attention to the direction the ships came in. I’d say more of them docked on the east, but that’s all I know.”

  “I’ll let the pilot know when we get closer,” Percival said.

  Avoiding the storm added an extra day to the journey. Lord Percival had spent the entire time restless and weary, confined to a bunk for all but an hour or so each day. Ayers was at least able to add a respectable edge to Brinna’s daggers, though he grumbled incessantly when he gave them back, saying something about disrespecting his skill as a smith by having him work on dinnerware.

  No matter their quality, Brinna was glad to have her blades where they belonged, tucked neatly into the inside flanks of her leather boots. The talon dagger was small enough to fit into her belt without the hilt poking out and giving it away.

  Ships constantly came and went at Skarm’s Reif. The city itself was situated on an offshoot of the actual ocean, facing a rocky, uninhabited island directly to the south. Unlike the cities and settlements of Agglor closer to the Boneridge Mountains, Skarm’s Reif had never been formally planned. The city had organically grown over the years from a collection of several fishing villages to a scattered, disorganized heap of buildings and streets all piled on top of each other. Being so close to the ungoverned realms of the jackals and other non-humans, Skarm’s Reif had never been important.

  It was easy to see that everything had changed. The blue and gold banners of the Priorate Knights flew from almost every window. The knights had transformed the ramshackle layout of the city into a well-organized machine ready for war. There were spiked ramparts built everywher
e, even in places that didn’t make any sense like unused alleyways and main thoroughfares. Kadorax wasn’t sure exactly how close the nearest jackal settlement was to Skarm’s Reif, but he was fairly certain there wouldn’t be any fighting in the streets.

  “Doesn’t hurt to be prepared, I guess,” he said as he disembarked from the Grim Sleeper.

  “Well, I think we’ll find the priory chapter quite easily,” Syzak said.

  A little ways up the hill from the docks, a huge stone structure dominated the entire city’s skyline. Blue and gold pennants flew from its three towering steeples. Several groups of armored men were being led on drills in front of the priory’s door, a loud sergeant on horseback barking orders to them.

  “And where are your Blackened Blades?” Brinna asked. “Everything that isn’t clearly of priorate construction looks dingy enough to be your headquarters.”

  Kadorax shot her a sidelong glance, then shook his head. “You know, there’s something to be said for inconspicuousness. You’re a rogue. You shouldn’t even like all that pomp and visibility.”

  “Ha, you’re right,” Brinna laughed. “All the splendor and majesty gets a little grating after a while, I suppose.”

  Letter of introduction in hand, Kadorax led them through the streets toward the priory. They passed several groups of knights along the way as well as all manner of civilians trying to sell their war provisions. Most of the weapons and armor being vendored were barely good enough to even use as scrap, but Kadorax did see one shop displaying high-quality arms in their front window.

  “I’ll need a sword later,” the bastion mused to himself, making an effort to remember where the shop was located.