1
Erich gripped the pommel of his dagger, lengthening his stride as the Midnight Guards’ elongated shadows chased him. They didn’t move from their positions at the temple steps, but he felt their eyes following him just the same. A sliver of moon burned defiantly against a twilight sky. Few precious hours remained before curfew, and he couldn’t waste a second. If he didn’t make it back to the Wind Maiden by then, not only would they leave on the morning tide without him, taking all his geld and belongings, but they’d strand him in Artria for weeks, long past the next full moon. That was assuming the Midnight Guard didn’t discover him first.
Head down, he joined the crowds spilling out of overcrowded inns lining Temple Street, as they sought entertainment in cheap theaters and gambling houses the next district over. Market-type stalls popped up to line the street and take advantage of the influx of pilgrims swarming Artria. The scent of meat pies wafted on the air, commingling unpleasantly with the fetid stench of the city, and each brush of a stranger made his skin twitch. He couldn’t have picked a worse time to visit with the solstice looming, the city bursting at the seams, and him fresh off a long stint in a hermit’s cottage in the wilds of Soccicio. Erich had grown accustomed to the company of shamans and wisewomen and had forgotten what it was like to walk amongst the unwashed masses.
Despite his instinct to break from the pack, he let the crowd pull him along like the current of a river, flowing downhill, and as they did, barkers lured pilgrims into their brightly-painted establishments, thinning the crowds, drip by drip. The road curved, and those that remained kept their heads down and walked with purposeful strides; unlike the wide-eyed ambling pilgrims, they didn’t need someone to direct them to where they were going.
The street was dirtier there; putrid puddles collected between cracked stone and buildings leaned against each other as if they’d collapse without their support. Erich consulted a street post at a four-way intersection, and its dangling faded sign indicated he’d arrived in the Velvet District. A rather sumptuous name for a seedy district of the city. The corner where he stood stank of boiled vomit, and a few feet away, a tree-sized man leaned against the greasy wall of a tavern picking his teeth with the tip of his pocketknife. Erich removed a piece of parchment from his pocket, squinting at ink-splotched letters, to check the name of the tavern where his contact waited: The Gilded Weasel.
He’d found the place, though it wasn’t what he’d imagined when the Soccicio sailor had told him about the Miracle Worker of Artria. A potential cure had been an irresistible temptation and lured him off the boat despite the risks. In the past, he’d scaled a mountain to find a healer with a gift for herbs, and crossed a desert seeking a man who still spoke the language of stars; what was a quick jaunt into the city to meet this supposed miracle worker? Maybe he’d be different than the rest, and they’d free him of this dragon corruption.
Plastered on the wall outside was a poster promising geld for information about the corrupted, and his hand twitched, wishing to grasp his dagger for comfort. A blow struck his shoulder, and spinning, Erich drew his blade from under his coat and pressed it against the neck of his assailant. The man paled to the color of milk, and his wide, dark eyes darted between the dagger and Erich.
“Please, I have nothing,” he stuttered, hands held up helplessly as the sleeves of his overlarge jacket slid down his thin wrists.
Judging by his moderate attire, a clerk or something similar and no threat to him. Sighing, Erich sheathed his dagger. The tree-trunk man grasped his comically small pocketknife in his beefy fist and eyed Erich, as if looking for a fight.
This was why he hated the cities; in less than an hour, he was assaulting innocents.
“No harm. I overreacted. Guess, I’m jumpy since the war,” Erich said with a smile and a pat on his shoulder.
Both nodded their heads. Everyone on the continent could sympathize; war had scarred them all. It made for a convenient cover because no one asked questions, and though he might not have fought in any war, he’d fought his fair share of battles.
“Let me buy you a drink.” The clerk gestured toward the pub.
Tree man hadn’t let go of his pocketknife, and his beady eyes shifted from the poster then to Erich. Had Erich moved too quickly or in some way appeared inhuman? He was always careful to keep a tight rein on his reactions and movements to not give away his unusual strength and senses. But mistakes happened, as the past had shown. Best to get what he came for and leave before he aroused any more suspicion.
With a forced smile, he slung an arm around the clerk’s shoulder, who buckled beneath the weight of him as Erich ushered him into the tavern. Inside, dark panels lined the walls, a familiar hazy, sweet-smelling cloud of smoke choked the air and obscured the faces of the patrons crowding the battered tables throughout the room. Beneath the stench of sweat, smoke, and cheap ale, something tugged at his senses, a thread of magic. A tingle raised the hairs on the back of his neck, faint and hardly noticeable to anyone who wasn’t trained to.
The clerk slid out from under his arm and found them seats at the bar. It, too, pulsed faintly with live magic. Running a finger against the lip of the bar, Erich discovered runes carved there that responded to his touch and sent a jolt up his arm. They were everywhere in the pub, hidden along ceiling beams and in decorative flourishes on archways. His ability to read runes was academic at best, meaning educated guesswork, but they seemed to be wards of protection. Who’d carved them here, in a city that outlawed magic? For the first time in a long time, he felt hopeful.
After The Corruption, the language and practice of rune spells had been lost. Sometimes, in small remote villages, he stumbled across them carved into a tree or rock, remnants of the past, more superstitious ritual than real magic, never flickering or giving any indication of power even when he actively tried to awaken them. They’d lost their power ages ago, and those villagers that remained wouldn’t say who’d created them, and no one remembered where they’d originated before that. Except perhaps the Church of Sol, who hoarded knowledge of the age before The Corruption, keeping those last fragments of magic for themselves.
“An ale for me and my comrade,” the clerk said, when the bartender came over.
Grasping two tankards in one hand, the bartender filled them both from a golden stream of ale pouring out of a dusty barrel before plopping them down onto the counter in front of them. Erich tossed a few kupfer to the bartender, a small penance for drawing a dagger on the clerk, and the bartender caught them midair, revealing a black circle tattoo, encircled by half a dozen stars. A cold chill ran down his spine; now, he understood the runes throughout the establishment.
Each star on his wrist represented a successful hunt. Dead corrupted. Men and women like him. Were there other dragon-corrupted among his trophies? The bartender caught his stare and brushed a hand against his wrist as he pulled down the sleeve of his shirt.
“I’m retired now,” he said, to answer his unasked question.
Bad enough he’d recognized it. The Church of Sol didn’t want civilians hunting corrupted; that was the Midnight Guards’ job. But desperate men and women risked it all to hunt and kill corrupted, harvesting valuable horns, claws, and fangs to be sold on the black market. Retired hunters were rare, as most died in pursuit of their next bounty or were caught by the church and punished. Erich took a swig of the bitter ale and scanned the room, suddenly aware he might have stumbled into a trap. The bartender moved on, and most of the patrons were absorbed in their own glasses, but for one sandy blond-haired man standing by the door, arms crossed, and eyes narrowed. Erich sought the comfort of his pommel.
“You seem young to have fought in the war,” the clerk said.
“You’re one to talk. What are you, seventeen?” Erich replied without looking away from the man at the door. His eyes were following someone, but it was difficult to say who amongst the crowd.
“I’m older than I look,” he said.
Erich ignored him as he’d found who the blond was watching. A fiery redhead sauntered over toward him, and he tensed. Sometimes hunters worked together in a group: the bartender, the woman, and the man at the door could be attempting to entrap him. She squeezed between him and the man on his left, leaning against the bar. She flagged the bartender over, whose face lit up as he hurried over to take her order. While the bartender filled her drink, he studied her profile, full lips, pale skin, and smooth hands that didn’t fit her homespun. The lack of scars and callouses told him she wasn’t a sword for hire, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t a hunter’s lure.
Her blue eyes slid toward him, and a smile curled her rouge lips.
“You gonna sit here all night staring into that tankard?” she asked.
Lure or not, he wasn’t going to take the bait. After chugging his drink, he slammed the empty tankard down onto the counter. It was possible he was being paranoid, but he hadn’t come this far to not at least try. Besides, at this moon phase, he wasn’t worth anything to a hunter, and he’d fought against worse odds and lived.
“All yours,” Erich said, sweeping an arm to his now-empty seat.
