Winter 35, 512 AV
Just after midnight.
Waveguard patrol was never supposed to be hard. Kip Drawlins had passed the Waveguard initiation nearly a year ago, but he never felt comfortable patrolling at night. Something about the shadows cast from gothic architecture cast terrifying phantoms on the cobblestone, hid villains all too well. For the champion of justice, the night was an unfamiliar time of unrelenting danger.
A cold wind shrieked around corners and coiled around his navy clad body, seeking the tiny holes in fabric to seep and bite with icy fangs. Shivering, Kip started his fourth walk along East street. These winter times were always the most difficult for Zeltiva. Scarcely a winter had gone by when food wasn’t a little short…made men think about desperate things. The shield on his arm and rapier in his sheath were the only instruments of justice he carried with him. In all his time as Waveguard, he’d only pulled his blade five times, but never had the chance to use it. Zeltiva was, at its core, one of the more peaceful cities in Sylira…perhaps not as safe as Syliras or Nyka with their militant guard and citizens, but certainly more so than Sunberth.
Kip remembered how some of the others used to tell it, the outsiders that had been to Sunberth before. Way they painted it, the city of anarchy was a frightening sort of place…the sort of place Kip would never survive. At the least, however, he lived in Zeltiva. In the seat of intellectual progress and charity, he couldn’t think of a better location to raise his wife and kid than in the shadow of the University and Maria’s tower.
Taking a deep breath, the Waveguard held up his lantern, banishing the darkness at the corner of the old shops, revealing nothing in the early morning. His nerves were on fire, the product of too many tall tales the previous evening with Ricky, Marl, and Paulson at the World’s End Grotto. Personally, he’d pulled to have one of his friends with him on the patrol, especially Gott…one of the more competent swordsmen on the force. Although the other four men didn’t know him all too well, they all shared the common bond of trying to do something good for Zeltiva…clean up the streets and keep the citizens safe. Kip had expressed his condolences for Ricky’s dead dog…although he’d never owned a dog himself, it must have felt similar to if he’d lost his son…that sort of pain, no man should go through. Ricky had been antisocial since his joining of the Waveguard…Kip had tried to reach out, but had done a poor job of it…he always fumbled in social situations.
The sharp sound of heels on cobblestone turned the Waveguard around wildly, his lantern dancing in a trembling hand as he illuminated a single figure, clad in a black cloak and wide brimmed hat, approaching him from the darkness.
“Halt!” Kip called out, surprised his voice didn’t tremble with the shock of the sudden arrival, “Who are you? It’s late, what brings you out?”
The figure paused, pushed up the brim of the hat with an index finger to reveal a hawk-nosed man with long curly black hair and dark eyes. His every feature was almost carved to magnify some inner strife, snake-like and sinister. The lantern shook in Kip’s hand and the other went to the rapier at his side.
“Good evening, Waveguard,” The fellow greeted quietly, holding up a hand in a short wave, “You may call me Hound, a visitor in these parts seeking a hole to lay low for the night.”
“There should be room at the Scholar’s Inn,” Kip answered, pointing back towards the end of East Street, “If you’d like, I can show you to a cheaper inn here on East street, but I cannot promise they will open doors…most are abed at this hour.”
“Most, yes. Zeltiva hasn’t the night life Sunberth does…” he cocked his head quizzically, “Perhaps that’s for the best.”
Kip swallowed hard. Something about the man filled him with a nameless dread. He had blades at his belt, but currently no hand went to draw them. There was only this expectation in the air…the wind had stopped blowing, or maybe he just couldn’t feel it with numbed skin. “You’re from Sunberth?”
“Briefly,” Hound told him, drawing out the word, “But I found it too chaotic for my liking…not enough to work with, no, no, certainly not. Have you been?”
“N-No,” Kip answered, swallowing his word, “Stayed in Zeltiva all my life with my wife and kid.” Babbling, why was he babbling? All he could think about was how much he wanted to be home, to curl up against Linda and place a kiss on the crown of Jonas’ head. Anywhere but here, anywhere but talking to this stranger in the dead of night.
“Child and wife, how fortunate.” The stranger didn’t seem interested in talking, had begun walking toward the Waveguard again, pace by lazy pace. His feet clacked, the heels like thunder. “No family myself, but it’s all too common a story in Mizahar these days, yes? The Djed Storm, the dangers in the wilds, the unrest of certain cities…you’re a lucky man to have lived so well till now.”
It was strange, even what may have been a compliment coming from Hound’s mouth sounded cold, patronizing. Kip reflected on it only a moment, about to offer him a thank you when the last words weighed on his mind with all their terrifying weight. “Till…now?”
But Hound was already swinging into motion, close enough now, he lunged out, drawing his rapier in a bell of steel. Kip was too startled to even yelp, falling back and dropping the lantern, grasping for his blade. Hound stepped forward and caught the handle, placing the lantern down as Kip ripped out his rapier and swung it in at his aggressor. Both blades clashed against each other, ringing out in the night to ears that did or did not care. The two separated, circling around the dancing firelight, casting strange and fearsome shadows between the two. Hound was smiling, but not a gloating one…it was a cold grin, the finality of Dira herself. In antithesis, Kip was pale-faced, panicked. He could only think of his wife, his child, his friends…of dying alone out here on a winter’s eve to a stranger he’d never met. There was no motive, nothing he could have wanted. So why? Why!?
Hound lunged again and Kip barely had time to cross his blade in front of his opponent. Again, both swords met and Hound continued the advance, pushing Kip up against the side of a shop. Only the blades held the distance between them and Hound delivered a blow to Kip’s face with his other hand, knocking the poor Waveguard off his feet and onto the ground, rolling into the alley beside the shop...isolated. His blade clattered from his cold fingers, but even as he reached for it, a black boot kicked it skittering across the cobblestone.
Kip fell away from the blade, rolling toward an ally, a scream frozen in his throat. He couldn’t. He couldn’t die here, not yet, not yet! Never had he faced such certainty of grim demise. Tomorrow he had a drink with Gott, on Friday he took his son to a playdate. His wife and he would stay out too late on the docks on Saturday with friends while their son was in the care of the neighbor’s daughter. All his schedule choices, his daily routine, they all flashed like lights across his mind. Death? Death was impossible. He had so much to do! This wasn’t real. He was dreaming, he was dreaming, he was dre-
Hound grabbed him by the collar and hoisted the Waveguard to his feet, hauling back and punching him square in the jaw. Kip dropped to the cobblestone again, sputtering, hands to his face. He could feel blood, warm spattered on his uniform, on his cheeks, his lips, his tongue. The iron taste lent some reality to the situation and he kicked out wildly, striking his adversary again and again in the legs. Hissing, Hound retreated and Kip scrambled to his feet. He just had to run, run and call for help. The Waveguard patrolling nearby would come to help him. He could write this off as a bad day, a horrible day, go home and just lose himself in family…just for a while. He took two steps towards his discarded sword and stopped.
A coldness enveloped his chest, followed by a growing heat.
It was shock that kept him from feeling pain, staring down at the protruding end of the rapier. It twinkled in the cold starlight, caught fire by the lantern. It glittered there, so beautiful, so out of place protruding from his skin. It didn’t belong there, it belonged in a sheath, in his hand…
But his own sword lay away from his senseless fingers.
Kip dropped to his knees, his mind desperately trying to work around the logic of it all. He’d been impaled, he was dying, he was bleeding out. The facts hit him softly, having no comparable reality to hang upon. No, this couldn’t be. He was…this was Zeltiva. Who would have reason to assault a Waveguard? Who would want to kill them? Why him? He had a family to get home to, a family, damnit!
Hound drew the blade out of the Waveguard, circling around in front of him and squatting to look the dying man in the eye. Kip looked back at him with pure, dumb disbelief, stubborn tears collecting at the rims of his green eyes. He did not ask why, but his mouth formed the word.
“I take no pleasure in your slaying,” Hound told Kip, placing a hand almost comfortingly on his shoulder, “I do this as a necessary blow, the first blow to reform. The Waveguard are weak…they cannot protect Zeltiva from men like me.” Kip coughed, tasing nothing but iron now, nothing but exhaustion. He was tired…so very tired.
Hound continued, “They must be taught, Waveguard, taught that their charity, their education, their well wishes are not enough. Together, we will show them the need for strength, the need to change. The winter is long and harsh, Waveguard, and they need to be ready for when those are not the only dangers prowling their streets.”
He stood, clutching Kip’s shoulder. But Hound’s words seemed so distant. So very…distant. Kip fell forward, but he didn’t feel the stone, or the wind, or the blade at his throat when Hound pulled his head up by the hair. He was only aware of being tired, so very tired…and that tomorrow he would wake up and it would all be a dream. No phantom from Sunberth, no blade in his chest, no fear, no Dira, no death…he would wake with his wife and son and face the new day…as he had many times before.
Kip was as good as dead when Hound cut his throat, drenching the blue of his uniform in crimson. He was dead when Hound tore the uniform from his chest, carved the word WEAK into his flesh, and uncoiled rope from his belt. He was dead when the hypnotist threw slack over the tree branches near where he had fallen, and by lantern light, hoisted the body up by the neck till it was hanging from the tree, senselessly rocking there to the tune of Morwen’s wind.
He left the rapier planted in the dirt beneath the tree, the lantern beside it.
If anyone had seen his grisly deed, none spoke of it. Hound stepped back into East street, pulling his wide brimmed hat low and swiftly snaking down an alley. Three or four he took, swiftly moving from turn to turn till he was satisfied he’d lost any pursuer. Djed snaked through his hands and body as he twisted into the shape of a Symenestra, crawling up the side of a building to get a hidden perch watching the body dance distantly, like a shadow between the branches.
The Waveguard would come at any moment…if no one had seen Hound assault the man, a tall shadow in black, then they would send someone to relieve Kip in another chime or two. It was their way, the way Wren had learned when he worked for them. Let this be the first message to the Waveguard, the stunning attack on one of their own that would sound the trumpet call of their death knell…of their transformation.
The guilt at killing Kip was swallowed by his boiling ambition…he had risen above the moral ramifications of a few deaths. Kip died in pursuit of a greater cause…and he served no better purpose than to herald this era of fear…this winter of discontent.
Let the Waveguard come.
Let them witness.
Let them learn.
Just after midnight.
Waveguard patrol was never supposed to be hard. Kip Drawlins had passed the Waveguard initiation nearly a year ago, but he never felt comfortable patrolling at night. Something about the shadows cast from gothic architecture cast terrifying phantoms on the cobblestone, hid villains all too well. For the champion of justice, the night was an unfamiliar time of unrelenting danger.
A cold wind shrieked around corners and coiled around his navy clad body, seeking the tiny holes in fabric to seep and bite with icy fangs. Shivering, Kip started his fourth walk along East street. These winter times were always the most difficult for Zeltiva. Scarcely a winter had gone by when food wasn’t a little short…made men think about desperate things. The shield on his arm and rapier in his sheath were the only instruments of justice he carried with him. In all his time as Waveguard, he’d only pulled his blade five times, but never had the chance to use it. Zeltiva was, at its core, one of the more peaceful cities in Sylira…perhaps not as safe as Syliras or Nyka with their militant guard and citizens, but certainly more so than Sunberth.
Kip remembered how some of the others used to tell it, the outsiders that had been to Sunberth before. Way they painted it, the city of anarchy was a frightening sort of place…the sort of place Kip would never survive. At the least, however, he lived in Zeltiva. In the seat of intellectual progress and charity, he couldn’t think of a better location to raise his wife and kid than in the shadow of the University and Maria’s tower.
Taking a deep breath, the Waveguard held up his lantern, banishing the darkness at the corner of the old shops, revealing nothing in the early morning. His nerves were on fire, the product of too many tall tales the previous evening with Ricky, Marl, and Paulson at the World’s End Grotto. Personally, he’d pulled to have one of his friends with him on the patrol, especially Gott…one of the more competent swordsmen on the force. Although the other four men didn’t know him all too well, they all shared the common bond of trying to do something good for Zeltiva…clean up the streets and keep the citizens safe. Kip had expressed his condolences for Ricky’s dead dog…although he’d never owned a dog himself, it must have felt similar to if he’d lost his son…that sort of pain, no man should go through. Ricky had been antisocial since his joining of the Waveguard…Kip had tried to reach out, but had done a poor job of it…he always fumbled in social situations.
The sharp sound of heels on cobblestone turned the Waveguard around wildly, his lantern dancing in a trembling hand as he illuminated a single figure, clad in a black cloak and wide brimmed hat, approaching him from the darkness.
“Halt!” Kip called out, surprised his voice didn’t tremble with the shock of the sudden arrival, “Who are you? It’s late, what brings you out?”
The figure paused, pushed up the brim of the hat with an index finger to reveal a hawk-nosed man with long curly black hair and dark eyes. His every feature was almost carved to magnify some inner strife, snake-like and sinister. The lantern shook in Kip’s hand and the other went to the rapier at his side.
“Good evening, Waveguard,” The fellow greeted quietly, holding up a hand in a short wave, “You may call me Hound, a visitor in these parts seeking a hole to lay low for the night.”
“There should be room at the Scholar’s Inn,” Kip answered, pointing back towards the end of East Street, “If you’d like, I can show you to a cheaper inn here on East street, but I cannot promise they will open doors…most are abed at this hour.”
“Most, yes. Zeltiva hasn’t the night life Sunberth does…” he cocked his head quizzically, “Perhaps that’s for the best.”
Kip swallowed hard. Something about the man filled him with a nameless dread. He had blades at his belt, but currently no hand went to draw them. There was only this expectation in the air…the wind had stopped blowing, or maybe he just couldn’t feel it with numbed skin. “You’re from Sunberth?”
“Briefly,” Hound told him, drawing out the word, “But I found it too chaotic for my liking…not enough to work with, no, no, certainly not. Have you been?”
“N-No,” Kip answered, swallowing his word, “Stayed in Zeltiva all my life with my wife and kid.” Babbling, why was he babbling? All he could think about was how much he wanted to be home, to curl up against Linda and place a kiss on the crown of Jonas’ head. Anywhere but here, anywhere but talking to this stranger in the dead of night.
“Child and wife, how fortunate.” The stranger didn’t seem interested in talking, had begun walking toward the Waveguard again, pace by lazy pace. His feet clacked, the heels like thunder. “No family myself, but it’s all too common a story in Mizahar these days, yes? The Djed Storm, the dangers in the wilds, the unrest of certain cities…you’re a lucky man to have lived so well till now.”
It was strange, even what may have been a compliment coming from Hound’s mouth sounded cold, patronizing. Kip reflected on it only a moment, about to offer him a thank you when the last words weighed on his mind with all their terrifying weight. “Till…now?”
But Hound was already swinging into motion, close enough now, he lunged out, drawing his rapier in a bell of steel. Kip was too startled to even yelp, falling back and dropping the lantern, grasping for his blade. Hound stepped forward and caught the handle, placing the lantern down as Kip ripped out his rapier and swung it in at his aggressor. Both blades clashed against each other, ringing out in the night to ears that did or did not care. The two separated, circling around the dancing firelight, casting strange and fearsome shadows between the two. Hound was smiling, but not a gloating one…it was a cold grin, the finality of Dira herself. In antithesis, Kip was pale-faced, panicked. He could only think of his wife, his child, his friends…of dying alone out here on a winter’s eve to a stranger he’d never met. There was no motive, nothing he could have wanted. So why? Why!?
Hound lunged again and Kip barely had time to cross his blade in front of his opponent. Again, both swords met and Hound continued the advance, pushing Kip up against the side of a shop. Only the blades held the distance between them and Hound delivered a blow to Kip’s face with his other hand, knocking the poor Waveguard off his feet and onto the ground, rolling into the alley beside the shop...isolated. His blade clattered from his cold fingers, but even as he reached for it, a black boot kicked it skittering across the cobblestone.
Kip fell away from the blade, rolling toward an ally, a scream frozen in his throat. He couldn’t. He couldn’t die here, not yet, not yet! Never had he faced such certainty of grim demise. Tomorrow he had a drink with Gott, on Friday he took his son to a playdate. His wife and he would stay out too late on the docks on Saturday with friends while their son was in the care of the neighbor’s daughter. All his schedule choices, his daily routine, they all flashed like lights across his mind. Death? Death was impossible. He had so much to do! This wasn’t real. He was dreaming, he was dreaming, he was dre-
Hound grabbed him by the collar and hoisted the Waveguard to his feet, hauling back and punching him square in the jaw. Kip dropped to the cobblestone again, sputtering, hands to his face. He could feel blood, warm spattered on his uniform, on his cheeks, his lips, his tongue. The iron taste lent some reality to the situation and he kicked out wildly, striking his adversary again and again in the legs. Hissing, Hound retreated and Kip scrambled to his feet. He just had to run, run and call for help. The Waveguard patrolling nearby would come to help him. He could write this off as a bad day, a horrible day, go home and just lose himself in family…just for a while. He took two steps towards his discarded sword and stopped.
A coldness enveloped his chest, followed by a growing heat.
It was shock that kept him from feeling pain, staring down at the protruding end of the rapier. It twinkled in the cold starlight, caught fire by the lantern. It glittered there, so beautiful, so out of place protruding from his skin. It didn’t belong there, it belonged in a sheath, in his hand…
But his own sword lay away from his senseless fingers.
Kip dropped to his knees, his mind desperately trying to work around the logic of it all. He’d been impaled, he was dying, he was bleeding out. The facts hit him softly, having no comparable reality to hang upon. No, this couldn’t be. He was…this was Zeltiva. Who would have reason to assault a Waveguard? Who would want to kill them? Why him? He had a family to get home to, a family, damnit!
Hound drew the blade out of the Waveguard, circling around in front of him and squatting to look the dying man in the eye. Kip looked back at him with pure, dumb disbelief, stubborn tears collecting at the rims of his green eyes. He did not ask why, but his mouth formed the word.
“I take no pleasure in your slaying,” Hound told Kip, placing a hand almost comfortingly on his shoulder, “I do this as a necessary blow, the first blow to reform. The Waveguard are weak…they cannot protect Zeltiva from men like me.” Kip coughed, tasing nothing but iron now, nothing but exhaustion. He was tired…so very tired.
Hound continued, “They must be taught, Waveguard, taught that their charity, their education, their well wishes are not enough. Together, we will show them the need for strength, the need to change. The winter is long and harsh, Waveguard, and they need to be ready for when those are not the only dangers prowling their streets.”
He stood, clutching Kip’s shoulder. But Hound’s words seemed so distant. So very…distant. Kip fell forward, but he didn’t feel the stone, or the wind, or the blade at his throat when Hound pulled his head up by the hair. He was only aware of being tired, so very tired…and that tomorrow he would wake up and it would all be a dream. No phantom from Sunberth, no blade in his chest, no fear, no Dira, no death…he would wake with his wife and son and face the new day…as he had many times before.
Kip was as good as dead when Hound cut his throat, drenching the blue of his uniform in crimson. He was dead when Hound tore the uniform from his chest, carved the word WEAK into his flesh, and uncoiled rope from his belt. He was dead when the hypnotist threw slack over the tree branches near where he had fallen, and by lantern light, hoisted the body up by the neck till it was hanging from the tree, senselessly rocking there to the tune of Morwen’s wind.
He left the rapier planted in the dirt beneath the tree, the lantern beside it.
If anyone had seen his grisly deed, none spoke of it. Hound stepped back into East street, pulling his wide brimmed hat low and swiftly snaking down an alley. Three or four he took, swiftly moving from turn to turn till he was satisfied he’d lost any pursuer. Djed snaked through his hands and body as he twisted into the shape of a Symenestra, crawling up the side of a building to get a hidden perch watching the body dance distantly, like a shadow between the branches.
The Waveguard would come at any moment…if no one had seen Hound assault the man, a tall shadow in black, then they would send someone to relieve Kip in another chime or two. It was their way, the way Wren had learned when he worked for them. Let this be the first message to the Waveguard, the stunning attack on one of their own that would sound the trumpet call of their death knell…of their transformation.
The guilt at killing Kip was swallowed by his boiling ambition…he had risen above the moral ramifications of a few deaths. Kip died in pursuit of a greater cause…and he served no better purpose than to herald this era of fear…this winter of discontent.
Let the Waveguard come.
Let them witness.
Let them learn.
