The Withered Land: Dragons and Marauders

Dragons and Marauders, Part Three

Blood-Haunters. Damn. He resented having to deal with rabble like the Xar'gueyeks.

For their part, Oerdyke and Murshipaz were well-disciplined ex-military who had weathered the slow collapse of civilization in the aftermath of that fateful, flaming meteor swarm that had streaked across the sky heralding the onset of The Long Death, remained impassive, yet hyper-alert and ready for anything.

"Well, look at you, all straight edges and clean lines," one of the Blood-Haunters, a lean, wolfish man in dented, aged half-armor taunted. D'Spayr couldn't help but notice the man's voice was a low-pitched baritone tinged with various regional influences, a touch of the western steppes here and a bit of the drawl from the equatorial climes there, revealing the man to be a long-term professional sell-sword who'd spent much time amongst the darker social castes of Teshiwahurian society. "You've the look of a soldier about you, like someone who's actually been on the front lines, but you carry yourself like some kind of warrior royalty. I never much liked royalty."

"Shiny-Tin there smells like Old Guard, like Outland Marshals division, to me," a shorter bear of a man in banded armor snarled past thick, bruised looking lips. "Are you a constable, Shiny-Tin? You a Peace Officer for the Emperium? Or are you just some gutter-rat in a fancy metal suit? Either way, I don't much like your attitude."

Under more normal circumstances, D'Spayr would have ignored them, considering them and their shady business dealings outside his professional purview and letting local law enforcement deal with them. But within the physical confines of The City, as a person living within its walls, even if only temporarily, and given his current occupational allegiance with Kolag Y'phree, the Knight could not do that.

Then, too, there were the fallen, lifeless bodies of the innocent machine operators to consider. Those men and women had committed no offense to anyone. They were mothers and fathers, someone's sisters or brothers, husbands and wives..., not mercenaries, not assassins. They had simply reported for work, much as they'd done on any other day, only having, this day, the misfortune to fall prey to the accident that put a ragged rift in the fortress-city's imposing wall. Those who had not been injured in the original accident had become prey for the predatory Xar'gueyeks. D'Spayr did not want to look at the bodies. He wanted to ignore them. If he could ignore them, then he wouldn't feel responsible to them. But that wasn't in the cards. The face of one of the construction workers, a middle aged woman who was probably considered poised and dignified, even attractive, while she'd been alive, stared vacantly up at the vastness of the sky with sightless eyes. She demanded someone's attention. She still mattered. Someone had to speak for her and those like her.

D'Spayr had long ago learned that being a Knight had a lot to do with making oneself known to Death.

"Just say the word, sir," Oerdyke, a bearded, red-haired, barrel-chested man of thick limbs, said calmly. A man who spoke softly, Oerdyke was a combat veteran of several territorial campaigns against socio-genetic religious insurgents and had little patience with people he viewed as morally bankrupt.

"Ayuh, sirrah, we await yuir command," Murshipaz, a coppery-skinned, athletic man who wore his raven-black hair in a long and braided ponytail, said in his distinctive equatorial island burr with rolling key consonants. Murshipaz was a hardened weapons and tactics specialist with years of counter-intelligence special assignments under his brass buckled belt.

The Knight acknowledged their comments with a wave of his gauntleted hand and he turned to fully face the belligerent mercenaries.

"Is this really necessary? Do you actually believe that capitalizing on an accident like this, under these conditions, warrants this kind of aggression? There's no coin to be made here, no plunder to make the effort worthwhile. It would make much more sense for you to have quietly infiltrated the interior of The City, avoiding its defenses, using this accident as cover..."