Eye of the Equifade

by J A Stone

  “The—red coat at bar—Cecil. He sells to you people. Deals—with devils,” Jova knew he had seconds left, this was his only chance.

  Emili looked nervously to the people in the pub. No one noticed, no one seemed to care, if anything, the crowd was louder. Glasses crashed in the distance, the barmaid was returning. “Um, guys?” she nudged British next to her.

  Warfell and Fey locked eyes on the red coat like calculating wolves. British spoke in a calm tone. “Emili, we will meet you outside. Jova, say hi to the Pub-Gods for me. Tell them I’m just too busy right now.”

  They grabbed the beers and rose, Warfell pushing the paralyzed man to the wooden floor. They walked past the waitress. “Ma’am?” she said as her words were consumed by the clatter of the crowd. They took long drinks, chugging the contents, spilling some on their necks.

  “Crowd control Boss?” Warfell shrugged her cloak back.

  “Nah, you take the dick this time,” British said as she thrust her pewter mug into the back of a head with long black hair.

  “Hey you sack of Raven poop. Why do you let the PUREBLOODS come down here to BREED YOUR WOMEN like that? RAPING your CHILDREN for money!”

  “That’ll do it boss,” Warfell moved straight for the bar as stage one commenced behind her and the cacophony of fighting overcame the commotion of drinking.

  The man in the red coat, Cecil, turned to see the happenings, and met Warfell’s steel-plate glove knuckles, immediately succumbing to the flash of light and the searing pain as blood gushed from his nose and his head jerked back.

  Warfell snatched him by the collar and brought him face to bloody face.

  “You sell a Raven to a Pureblood? The one who died? Yes?” she did not wait for a response, screaming at his yellow-red eyeballs.

  “GIVE ME THE NAME! THE NAME!” Men tried to swarm her and she struck two in the mouth with her elbows, spinning around to catch another with a mule kick in the stomach. Warfell then drew back and punched red coat on the chin wide and hard, knocking him out cold.

  She scanned the bar, Knives were being pulled but stage two was wrong. They were not fighting each other, they were after them! Crap! Warfell knew the unlikelihood of fist fighting their way out. She yanked her Thronesword free and flourished the weapon while finding her partner’s eye across the room.

  British was already swinging the short handled axe, taking hands, arms, chopping into thighs, bulldogging her way through the crowd. The small beauty nodded to Warfell and the two began fighting towards the center.

  Once together, they turned backs and drew daggers with free hands, accepting the crowd and rejecting it just as quickly. Drunks are always reckless and fearless. That foolhardy berserker methodology was easy to overcome, especially when most of them stopped and smiled first at the pretty girl before catching a wedge of axe in the baby-maker.

  After what seemed like forever, (It was a full house that night), Warfell shot a quick glance to the bar to see the target was gone.

  “LOST MY DICK!” she exclaimed.

  “He did too!” British pointed to one of her victims, laughed, and then ran beneath, between and around the intoxicated men while Warfell initiated stage three with ten ear-splitting shots, clearing a path after her partner. As the bodies fell into the arms of their brothers, she ejected the clip and slapped a new one in place, swinging the Longsword with her right hand and taking out armed targets with the pearl-handled Chesterborne—stage three commenced.

  British was almost to the back door, when Emili pushed Cecil the red coat back into the bar, one arm behind his back and a long dagger in his ribs tight.

  “Did you want this one? He looked important,” she said.

  No hesitation, British yanked the Blunderbuss out and jammed the flared barrel into Cecil’s pink face.

  “This is your one chance. Who bought the Raven that died last week? ANSWER ME!” He broke easily; the man blurted everything he knew.

  “It’s a man named Thaddeus, supposed to be a Knight at Court, he sets up all acquisitions for the purebloods, deals with an ex-Royal. Shit, shit…Von Tobruk…Anton Von Tobruk that’s all I know I swear! Please! I SWEAR!”

  British lowered the unusual firearm and spoke with the taste of death on her tongue.

  “Acquisitions? That’s what you call these girls, acquisitions? Boy howdy mother fucker,” Fey leaped and took his head clean with the small double-bladed chopper—forget wasting the diamond-shot in the Blunderbuss. As the torso fell to the deck, British addressed her new friend Emili.

  “That is what we call a very bad man,” she moved her eyes to see a battered Warfell, finally making it to the back, breaking the attack and running past the two elf-like girls.

  “Stay boy,” Danica pointed to the headless red coat on the floor as she flew past. British and Emili each bounced once and took after her.

  No one pursued—most of the survivors were horribly wounded, those who were not had seen more than enough.

  A block away, British stopped. “It’s Thaddeus. He connects all of the Raven girls to purebloods. He MUST have known Gwyneth was one, no way he couldn’t.”

  “If you accuse Lord Thaddeus…” Emili started.

  “Oh I’m not gonna accuse him of anything honey. But first, we got another name Warfell, a guy named Anton Von Tobruk, said he deals through him.

  “Must be a local,” Warfell surmised.

  “Let’s find out,” British concluded.

  With three hours left to go on his shift, Anton was about to prepare an armed escort for a Royal shipment of timepieces leaving Tibor. He left the government offices on the north end of the Proper with the necessary paperwork and held the door for Warfell, Fey and Lieutenant Swift, craning his head back to watch them as he continued forward. “Nice,” he said and British stopped cold, slowly turning back to give the creepy man a murderous gaze.

  “C’mon partner—we got targets,” Warfell broke the silence and all turned to go their respective ways.

  One hour later, British pulled back the door of the storage bin to see the emaciated, half-dead girl, chained and gagged. She placed a finger to lips and began picking the locks to her chains.

  In the house, Warfell and Emili quietly removed the Wife and Son, remanding them to the custody of local Constables with orders to keep them safe under the protection of the King. Minutes later, the victim was rushed to a Royal Infirmary.

  “That’s three lives saved, for a change,” Danica was relieved as the distraught woman and her equally confused Son were taken away in a carriage, back to the Governmental complex.

  “For a change?” Emili had to ask.

  “Yeah, you scared?” British raised only one eyebrow, clearly, she liked Emili.

  “No Ma’am,” the teenager replied. She did not see the interior of the pub either.

  “So, they said Von Tobruk is a Royal Courier, works in logistics and staging of shipments in the Governmental Com…SHIT!” Warfell realized the target would see his family and they’d lose him! She ran as fast as she could after the carriage, already two blocks away.

  “There!” British pointed to several Constables and their mounts waiting next to Von Tobruk’s fence. She and Emili ran and leaped, springing from the top of the railing to the backs of a Black Racer and a Scarlet Drafthorse. They catapulted across the lawn and onto the street—Warfell already out of sight.

  Danica took a side road shortcut at a full sprint and grabbed the leg of a mounted man cantering his Tinker mare home. She pulled him down to the cobble and the man lunged for her with a hunting knife.

  “Get away from my Bessie, I’ll kill ya!”

  Warfell dodged the loose swing and stifled the resistance with a steel-knuckle glove on the chin.

  “Sorry chum. I’ll return her, I swear,” she said to the unconscious man, already spurning the workhorse into as best a run as she would get from the beast on that fade or any other. “C’mon Bessie, you can do it girl,” Danica spoke lovingly as she did to Rarity and the mare ga
ve her a boost in return.

  Anton finished up early and was outfitting his Black Racer for the ride home, thinking of that girl. He was ready—damn he was ready. He already paid for the room in the pub district to display her in. Ravens like her, breeding with purebloods, it’s what ruined his life.

  He took a deep breath, finding his calm as he walked his mount away from the stables at Royal Shipping, put a smile on his face and waived to the mounted caravan coming in. One of the Constables was staring at him when he looked briefly through the barred window of the wagon. It was a Raven boy and some bitch—with blond hair?

  His mind was about to make the final connections of realization when he heard hooves on the pavement from a distance. He turned to see a woman and two girls, all with dark hair, all with weapons drawn, all burning holes through him with vengeful eyes. He leaped into the saddle as the police behind him began yelling and blowing whistles, shouting his name.

  No time! Anton brought the Racer about and bolted away.

  They were no match for his stallion—a well-honed beauty who never failed him. They broke away from the girls and catapulted down the street. He heard a gun firing, then silence.

  “Too late assholes,” Anton said, looking back at his three pursuers falling behind. He moved his face forward and saw a tall man standing in the road with a robed hand up, palm facing him. The Black Racer bounced to an abrupt halt and reared, throwing Anton down to the pavement.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Anton got to his feet, drew a pistol and unloaded the clip into the silent robes—nothing, the strange man stood resolute and spoke.

  Anton Von Tobruk, you must pay for what you have done.

  Tobruk froze in place, paralyzed with fear.

  “Say nothing,” British whispered as the girls slowly approached the screaming, wailing man, clenching his hands to his head, digging his nails into his face and howling the graphic details of every single murder—how he did it, where he did it and why.

  He moaned in agony about his Royal connection, and the one girl Thaddeus specifically told him to buy. He knew she was really a Pureblood when he raped her but he didn’t care, Thaddeus said she was a rebel, a sympathizer, so he pounded that one mercilessly until she died beneath him.

  Warfell glanced over to Emili and saw her face full of silent tears. She immediately yanked her away, dragging her twenty paces and holding her as she sobbed into Danica’s shoulder.

  “He’s a monster Warfell. How can a human do that to another?” Emili spoke past the tears.

  “I’ll never pretend to know sweetie, ever,” Danica held her tight.

  When Tobruk finally fell silent, British came to their side with a grim look.

  “He’s dead. It’s time to go see Good King Atria,” she held a severed head by the hair. “And I’m gonna need a sack or something.”

  The King paced nervously back and forth, his Councilmen, Elders and Knights gathered near, the silence of the Throne Room broken only by the tapping of Atria’s boots on the marble.

  “Where are they?” he mumbled to no one.

  More boots striking the floor from outside.

  “They are here my Liege!” a Royal Guardsman shouted.

  “Let them in,” Atria’s eyes shot forward.

  They burst through the doors, Warfell pushing a guard out of her way, knocking him down.

  “Bar these doors DO IT NOW! NOBODY LEAVES!” British howled to the room as she approached the King with a large cloth bag seeping blood.

  British, Danica and Emili solemnly took a knee before the King.

  “My Lord, this is the man who killed the beautiful Gwyneth, his name was Anton Von Tobruk,” she set the bag before him. “My heart and Soul lay naked before you—I am so sorry. There is no explanation for why some humans choose to do these things and that is what hurts me the most…because I cannot tell you why, forgive me. Please know this beast died painfully, without mercy at the hands of my Father, the Aequitas Caelum, the Justice from Heaven.”

  She said his name and the Ghost of Caelum Fey materialized in the center of the room.

  Good King Atria. Do not despair, for Gwyneth’s beauty and love will become legend. You must know that she…

  Caelum Fey paused.

  “She? Please tell me Caelum,” Atria begged, eyes now riddled with tears. “Please?”

  The Aequitas Caelum then pushed the wide, dark hood back and revealed his face to the King, appearing just as he did in life, warm, kind and wise—just as Atria remembered him.

  She is here old friend, in this room. She loves you so much. She is so sorry for the worry and pain she has caused you.

  As Caelum spoke, the King fell to his knees. Warfell and Fey walked slowly through the crowd of Elders, Nobles and Knights, most of them in tears themselves.

  There is something else you must know my friend. When I entered the twisted mind of Von Tobruk, he confessed everything to me…EVERYTHING!

  The Spirit roared like thunder and raised a finger to Thaddeus. The crowd gasped and murmured.

  Warfell was behind him and British to the side when Thaddeus grabbed the Knight nearest and pushed him into Warfell, rushing past her with British hot on his heels. He made it behind the tapestry with one second to spare and slammed the thin door behind him with a ‘click!’

  “DAMMIT-MAN!” British yelled as she ran into the wall and began furtively searching the smooth surface with eyes and hands whispering “No, no, no,” then uselessly clanging her axe on the metal. Danica tore the centuries old cloth down and turned to the King.

  “Where does this passageway lead my Lord?”

  “To the kitchens,” The Master Knight answered for his Liege. “Let me go,” he asked with eyes shooting from the girls to his King.

  “Go,” Atria nodded and the great doors were opened as Warfell, Fey, Swift and the Master Knight ran like lightning down the hall.

  They looked like a set of stairs viewed from the side—a giant man, tall woman, mid-height girl and pixie-kid, running side by side down the expansive hallways of the Tower of Atria.

  “He’ll go to the stables!” the Master Knight shouted.

  “He’s right.” Emili.

  “Here!” the giant man pointed and ducked down another stairwell, the girls right behind him. British leaped five and six steps at a time to get to the fore. At the ground level, she thrust the steel doors wide.

  A dozen short steel crossbow bolts clanged off the walls and doors about the threshold, one lodged in British’s shoulder. No hesitation, the Master Knight grabbed the small woman and pulled her back inside as the ring of rifle shot echoed.

  Warfell returned fire and scanned her surroundings. She could not get an eyeball on location. Another crack, another dent in the metal, Danica concentrated, calculating the trajectory of the projectile, preparing to let loose with the Chesterborne.

  On the deck:

  “Who uses crossbows?” British gave no sign of pain as the Master Knight yanked the eight-inch bolt out, ripped the leather sleeve of her shirt away, sliced through the wound with a hand knife and placed his mouth over the entire upper shoulder.

  “What are you doing?” Fey asked calmly, but Emili answered for the Knight.

  “That was a rapid-fire clip of Devil’s Tongue laced bolts—he’s sucking the poison out.”

  The Master Knight broke contact and spit repeatedly, snatching a flask of liquor from his belt, and drinking, rinsing, spitting more, then offering the hard alcohol to British. British smiled and accepted the flask, gulping down the rest.

  “Save my life you will?” she grinned.

  Warfell gathered her wits and leaped into the open, rolling and then firing the last of her clip at the target she could now see. Thaddeus fired one last shot, dropped the rifle and ran. Warfell gave pursuit, oblivious to the team behind her, full sights on the target. Ahead of him, across the greens, she saw Danton emerging from the Citadel Tower.

  She waived her hands desperately to get Danton’s a
ttention. He noticed and turned in time to catch a gauntleted fist in the face.

  “OH!” British shouted as Danton hit the deck hard and Thaddeus continued. “I KNOW that hurt,” she glanced to Emili as they ran and smiled.

  Emili was not smiling at all—her eyes were riveted to the Master Knight, whose mouth and chin were now covered in fresh flowing blood. British realized the man did not get all of the poison from his mouth.

  “Stop…” Emili asked as the girls came to a jog. The Master Knight was now jogging slow, “Stop, please,” then walking, and then finally the huge beast of a man fell to his knees, British and Emili bracing his massive shoulders. Warfell was far ahead, but she broke the chase when she saw the Master Knight collapse. In the distance, Thaddeus disappeared around a building.

  “Lost him—RAAAAAAAAA!” Danica screamed to the clouds and then placed a hand on each knee.

  A quarter-click behind Warfell, British held the Master Knight’s hand.

  “You saved my life. Thank you my Lord.”

  “It was an honor, young beauty.” He replied, voice becoming a whisper. “My real name is David.”

  “I shall avenge you David, I swear it,” British closed her eyes as her savior’s life slipped away into the ethos, a smile on his cheeks. Warfell and Danton were approaching, breathing hard.

  “I lost him boss. Master Knight, who teaches you people how to run, like…” Danica fell silent, realizing the man was dead. Then Danica saw something she had never seen before, something that made her heart leap with mixed excitement and fear.

  Her friend and partner, the Daughter of the Justice from Heaven, the unstoppable British Fey—was crying! Her eyes were soft glass, a lone stream trickling down, and the look of utter sadness cascading through the tears. British whispered to her partner.