They had been tracking the fugitives for much farther than Drystan had realized. By the time the reached the city gates the sun had long since set and the rain had been drizzling down lazily for over an hour. The watch that had greeted him on the way in that morning had been switched out for a half-dozen slightly older men who were none too pleased to be roused from their half-sleeping states as they spotted the travelers on the road in.
One decently armed man could open up the defenses of this entire city without trouble, Drystan thought bitterly as he examined the lackluster defenses from a distance. In little more than a minute he had picked apart the wall man by man without even consciously willing to do so, noting the weak points to attack and the entrenchments to avoid. One never knew when they would have to make a rapid egress, and he would rather take the path that had the fewest people along the way—he would likely be making an escape with Akkali, and she had absolutely no mercy when things became that dire.
Abruptly the Enkiri herself stalked out from the foggy treeline and approached them with her hands tucked into her sleeves. She had never cared much for the highland weather either, and it was fairly evident she was just as miserable as he about being stuck out in it. The narrow-eyed scowl twisting her fine-boned features was impossible to mis-translate. “They've boarded up the entire city, or so it seems.”
Her sudden appearance startled Tiernan, who visibly flinched and turned to stare at her. “Where have you been?”
“Consorting with Pandemonium fiends, as all Enkiri are apt to be doing after dark,” she retorted with a derisive grin. “Say, most of your order tend to be virgins, right, Inquisitor? I might need some ingredients later of of the pure, untainted and crimson kind.”
Though it looked like he had to put a lot of effort into it, Tiernan ignored her obvious attempt to bait him by simply shaking his head and glossing over what she had said. “They've been doing that for the past week. Started with a few shopkeepers in Uptown and spread like a plague.” He shrugged and headed towards the gate. “Come on, we can stay in the barracks at the church for the night. They're small but they're dry.”
The Enkiri's face closed off instantly, eyes going cold and lips all but vanishing into a thin line just above the collar of her buttoned-up coat. She seemed about ready to say something particularly scathing, then turned on her heels and marched back off into the fog. “I'll meet you at the campsite tomorrow morning, Drystan. Have fun with the zealot.”
The Inquisitor frowned as she disappeared almost as silently as she had come. “Absolutely charming.”
“Honestly, can you really blame her?” Drystan asked with a shrug.
“I...” The man grunted and his scowl deepened at having to admit that he was not surprised in the least with any foul-mouthed attitude the Inquisition received from the Enkiri. “No, I suppose not.”
“Just leave it be, Tier. You can try and change the heathen's opinion on the church tomorrow.”
“I have a feeling she'll cut my tongue out for trying.”
“Ah...” After thinking on it for a moment, Drystan furrowed his brow and added quickly, “On second thought, it's best just to leave that sleeping dog very much alone.”
For a brief moment Tiernan seemed willing to consider that he was saying such a thing in jest. When his serious expression failed to dissolve into a mocking grin, he sighed, shook his head, and let the matter drop.
As he had expected, they passed by the guards at the gate without so much as a second glance. Trying to be optimistic, Drystan told himself that it was because he was walking in the front door with an Inquisitor and not because the guards were too lazy or afraid to challenge them. Anyone reasonably concerned with the safety of the city would have at least asked them where they were from. All the two men received were wary stares and one uneasy grunt from a bearded man who smelled as if he'd been consistently drunk for the past week.
Everything in Baedorn was misty wet, and a low, thick fog hung around the buildings like uncombed wool. There wasn't a single soul on the streets, a horse out of its stable, or a city guardsman walking a patrol. The only ones that seemed to be going about their business were the rats, but even they were picking through the cracks in the street with cautious beady eyes on the shadows. The ones Drystan saw were as big as his foot and remarkably fat. He guessed they had turned the tables and begun preying on the cats, for there were no felines in the streets either, and were clever enough to avoid people seeking to butcher them for their own supper.
The atmosphere was utterly depressing. He felt as though funeral dirges should be drifting out from the shut-up taverns as they passed. He could feel the wary gazes watching him from the dark windows, waiting apprehensively to see if something would lunge out of the mist to snatch the two fools away to the black depths of Pandemonium for being out on the streets after dark. After all, according to the infallible city gossip-mongers, there were demons in the streets at night doing just that.
“Been like this long?” he asked his friend as they continued along down the narrow street towards the bell tower near the city's keep.
The dour mood seemed to have infected Tiernan with its miasma, and the man simply scowled and nodded in reply. It was a bit of relief to see that his friend's method of dealing with depression hadn't changed over the years. He clammed up and did his best not to start chastising people for being miserable over what he thought to be nothing worth getting upset over. While he had lived through far worse he always tried not to be a complete ass about flaunting that fact to others.
Drystan looked up and down the street. What little life there had been in the city earlier that day had been flushed out with the sun. It was about as disturbing as walking through a graveyard where all the headstones had been upturned and the caskets half-raised from the soil. “We should pick up at that campsite tomorrow. I could use your help.”
At this Tiernan looked at him with a confused scowl. “I'm sorry, what?”
“Well you're the best tracker I know,” he replied in a matter-of-fact tone. “I'd have spent hours with Akkali trying to figure out those trails out of the tack shed. We stand a better chance at finding them if you're with us.”
“I'm not so certain your Enkiri friend wants me around.” A single dark eyebrow arched as he looked down at the Inferi critically. “In fact I'm absolutely sure that if you weren't along she'd have already killed me.”
“Were I not here you would have never even known she existed,” he said with a slight chuckle, knowing full well that the only reason Akkali was anywhere near Baedorn was because he had asked her along. The last time she had come through the city resulted in the abrupt deaths of about eight people who had tried to collect the sizable bounty on her head. He didn't have the stomach at the time to ask exactly what she had done to them but he knew her history with Returners well enough to be certain it was disproportionately gruesome. “But trust me, she wants whomever is doing this dead more than she wants to engage in petty bickering with either of us. I could use both of your help.”
Tiernan sighed and pinched the brow of his nose. “I can already see that this is going to end about as well as that stunt you pulled when we were thirteen.”
“There's mutilated bodies appearing in the streets, Tier. How can it end any worse than that?”
“Oh, I don't know,” retorted the man, throwing his hands up in the air in exasperation, “perhaps some of them end up being ours? That would be a bit worse than ending up knee-deep in sacrificial goat parts.”
“You are such a pessimist, Brennan. That one wasn't even my fault—you're the one that had the map!”
The Inquisitor shook his head. “It'll take some very smooth talking on someone's behalf to get the Inquisitor General to even—”
“Captain Brennan! I should have you suspended in irons on dereliction!”
Drystan's head jerked around to locate the source of the familiar voice in the fog. It was coming from a wisp of a man that did not look to have the lung capacity to produce such a thunderous, authoritative voice. With a carefully maintained goatee and the top of his left ear missing, there was no mistaking who exactly the man was. He had less hair than Drystan remembered, and quite a few more wrinkles and liver spots, and he had actually lost an inexplicable amount of weight, but it was none other than the bane of his entire initiate life in Whiteshire.
The old man's eyes practically leaped forth from his skull once he caught sight of the Inferi. As always the man reigned in his surprise quickly and reset his face into its usual thin-lipped wrinkle-nosed scowl. “If it isn't the deserter Drystan of the Woad Plains. Come to crawl back into the arms of the father church, have you?”
“Good evening, Seneschal Inquisitor Haromir,” replied Drystan, clapping his sword-arm across his chest in the customary salute. “I hate to disappoint you, but I am spoken for.”
“So I hear.” Haromir gritted his teeth, which were still surprisingly white and well-maintained for a man of his age and proclivity for binge drinking. “And you, Brennan. Up to your old antics so soon after being reunited with your... Inferi friend?”
Tiernan's eyes slitted in barely restrained anger. Surprisingly enough, he would be having none of Haromir's insults. “I was tracking those responsible for the mess Baedorn's found itself in, as was my commission.” He straightened up to his full height, and dressed in the full mail of an Inquisitor Captain, Drystan had to admit his friend looked a quite bit more impressive and a great deal more dangerous than the seneschal in his belted robes and ceremonial ropes of office. “But perhaps I mistakenly interpreted the Inquisitor General's orders to suss out the problem in the Shalewarrens, and he indeed meant for me to sit on my thumbs in the Rectory and file reports on what might be happening.”
Exactly when Tiernan had developed such a sharp tongue towards his superior officers was a mystery, but the reaction it caused in the man threatened to drive Drystan into hysterical laughter. Haromir's face paled in embarrassment, though he managed to keep up his angry-eyed stare at the both of them despite the fact that a mere Captain had just severely punctured his ego with a javelin the size and weight of a warhorse.
“Orders or not, I cannot have my commanders leaving the barracks as they please to face unknown threats.”
That the seneschal had managed to recover his dignity with a valid reason to be furious at him was a bit impressive. Then again, the man had been at such games since the two of them were boys. If he were a poor player he would have been ejected from the field years ago.
“The Inquisitor Captain was accompanying one of my men at the request of the Inquisitor General.”
Drystan's spine locked up at the sound of the voice. The last he heard his commander was still investigating reports of Pandemonium fiends lurking in and around the western edge of the Oribian—leagues away from Baedorn.
“And just who are you?” snapped Haromir with a scowl.
A woman clad head-to-toe in blackened lamellar armor and clinking spurs on her boots strode across the floor to face the seneschal, deliberately making as much noise with each step as she cared to manage to punctuate her presence. Barely a hand's width over five feet tall but with a recurve bow her back and a broadsword sheathed on her hip she made a fearsome impression as she introduced herself with a thin, venomous smile that communicated without words that she was not someone to be underestimated nor toyed with.
“Brigadier Sacha Farseeth, Antenox Taskmaster of Oribian. Drystan of the Woad Plains is one of my men.”
Her appearance obviously struck the right chord with Haromir, for he saluted her rather than make his usual snide remark about seeing a woman in armor. It was a good thing, too—Drystan had witnessed the Brigadier cleave through a rank of mercenaries more heavily armed than Tiernan like a farmer might reap his wheat field at the harvest when in a particular state of pissed off. She did not like being referred to as a “haughty woman playing the man.” Above all she was an Inferi, and if anyone failed to respect that fact she simply beat it into their skulls with whatever blunt object happened to be within reach. If they were lucky it was just her fists.
“Do enlighten me, Seneschal Inquisitor: does the Inquisition make a habit of harrying all its men who show up late to bedtime because of dutifully carrying out their orders?”
“It does not, Brigadier.” His eyes narrowed slightly. “But the Inquisition also does not take kindly to interference in its internal workings from shadow organizations of ambivalent moralities, either.”
“Let us speak along those lines, shall we?” Though it seemed to take her a bit of effort, Farseeth put on her best diplomatic smile and motioned towards the offices of the Inquisitor General ahead of them. “I was on my way to see the Inquisitor General myself. If you would be so gracious accompany me?”
“If it pleases you, Brigadier,” said Haromir with a bitter edge to his voice. He cast one last furious gaze towards Drystan and Tiernan, then went back to ignoring them.
Farseeth turned back towards Drystan with a scowl on her face and lowered her voice. “Make yourself scarce, Nighttyr. Once I'm done with patching up this bridge you and I are are going to have a talk about playing hooky with a ranked officer of the Inquisition.”
Drystan saluted her sharply, happy to be off with just a warning shot instead of a full broadside of the Brigadier's anger. “Yes, ser.”
She nodded and stepped back to look Tiernan up and down with panther-like gold-brown eyes. “Do I know you, Captain?”
Unlike most others Tiernan did not seem the least bit intimidated by Farseeth's critical stare. He met her gaze without flinching, something that never failed to impress the woman who was used to making mere mortals cower in their boots with a glare and a few pointed words. “Perhaps in Whiteshire. Drystan and I trained there before he abandoned the church.”
“Ah, Coord mentioned that: the only sober one.” She flashed him a genuine smile. “Good to see you've finally dropped a pair.”
Unaware that the Brigadier meant her remark to be a compliment, Tiernan's eyes narrowed in irritation. “Thank you, ser.”
Farseeth nodded. “You, I like. You're forthright without being stupid about it like some of Drys' friends.” She turned to Haromir. “If you would, Seneschal Inquisitor.”
The two men waited until both Farseeth and Haromir were well out of earshot behind the large oak door into the Rectory at the end of the street.
“Well that was interesting.” Tiernan flashed a rare lopsided grin at their victory. “I wonder if I'll be tried for telling him off or if your commander will render him a eunuch.”
Drystan was amazed that his friend had taken a stand against Haromir at all. “Back in the day you'd have let him trounce all over you. What happened?”
The raven-haired man resumed walking towards the Rectory. In the thickening fog and now-pouring rain it was hard to tell where exactly the building was, or if it was a building at all. The circle-topped bell tower that thrust up from the fog bank and the warm orange glow from the upper level windows signaled it was still standing there, however.
“Eight years happened, that's what. Now can we get somewhere dry please? I hate this miserable highlander weather. It's depressing.”