36

The Mercs Guild

‘I have my doubts he will be pleased with this circumstance.’

‘He’ll get over it once we’ve found the rebels. The best meeting place for a revolution is in the prisons, after all.’

They walked along the streets of the strange smelling glassblower district. In stone buildings, blowers toiled in their furnaces, shaping supple glass into strange, complex shapes. The smaller forges worked mostly with the smaller constructions, making jewelry, idols, and ornaments, spilling their furnace smoke into the streets. The bigger factories moulded glass into giant shapes for the construction of the central crystal buildings. The great smoke chimneys poured their smoke into the skies above, generating a fat, dark cloud that hung over the rear of the city.

‘And if your assumed set of coincidences doesn’t coincide with your plan?’

‘If it doesn’t work, then I’ve just got an angry Caspar on my hands, and that’s not a big deal. You ever seen Caspar angry? It’s like those tiny chorns all the rich carry in their purses. Tiny, yappy things that try to bite your ankles. They can’t hurt, but they’re annoying as fuck. All you can do is kick them out the way. Kicked one into a second-story window once. Kicks like that deserve recognition, yet everyone was concerned about the chorn, for some reason.’

‘Ignoring your proclivity for possibly fabricated abusal of aesthetic display animals, I must ask what our actual agenda is. You’ve sent Kathiya and Caspar to find the source of this alleged rebellion, and while I’m certain that Ves’sa has her own reasoning for her departure, I make the assumption that we are pursuing another avenue for the locating of these upstarts, yet I have not a single iota of our means of achieving said objective.’

‘Sorry, I stopped listening halfway through. What did you say? This time, use ten words or less.’

‘What are we actually doing?’

‘If Caspar and Kathiya are going at this rebellion from the inside, then we gotta get it from outside. Classic pincer manoeuvre.’

‘That’s not a pincer. A pincer implies we attack it from outside at opposing directions. This is more like a... kazbug manoeuvre.’ As the bug is known for injecting it’s young into the body of its prey, which eats it from inside as the kazbug eats it from the outside. ‘And besides all that, how do we achieve this?’

‘By doing something I’ve wanted to do for a while. Anyway, I’m tired of walking and I need a drink. Here.’ He brought Sethel to a comfortably occupied outdoor tavern, shaded by hanging canvases of thick cloth, shielding the patrons from rain or sun or both given the weird weather patterns the forges bring.

They sat at a far corner in an attempt to avoid the street smog and achieved this only marginally, and a waitress brought their drinks, which came with a complimentary playscript. As far as effective advertising goes, it was about as good as a shot in the dark, but you have to work with what you have.

Sethel flicked through, out of interest, which annoyed Ludgar, as he wanted to use it as a coaster.

‘Any good?’

‘Utter tripe,’ Sethel said, skipping forward a few pages. ‘A basic power fantasy, filled with tropes, cliches, and an overpowered, flawless main character. I expect it will do very well.’

‘Why do you read that crap?’

‘I like to think we learn more from our mistakes than our successes,’ he said, without taking his eyes from the script. ‘Yet there are only so many mistakes one can make in a single lifetime. So I have to learn from others.’

‘So you’re a playwright as well?’

‘Yes. Possibly. I dabble. We all did it at Vesterwys.’

‘Mages are playwrights?’

‘There’s… overlap. From Luminous and Heaven, to the world in the pages of a novel, we simply find these worlds to be far more interesting than the one we currently live in.’

‘Hmm,’ Ludgar responded, taking a swig from his mug and ending the conversation. He winced at the taste. It wasn’t bad, it just had this strange aftertaste that didn’t sit well with him. Strangely metallic and uncomfortable to drink. He put it down to Savanti bars always fucking with their drinks and adding dumb stuff where nobody wanted it.

Sethel went for a much brighter coloured sweet drink made from crushed and fermented Goustenwald apples.

‘Why did you choose Kathiya and Caspar as partners for this task anyway?’ he asked after a refreshing and tender sip of his beverage.

‘Out of the four of us, since Ves’sa doesn’t count, who do you think is more likely to be part of a revolution?’

True, to an extent. Kathiya has that downtrodden, rough living that drives them towards a cause against the establishment, and Caspar is still young, and his mind is quite malleable. Both these qualities are naturally predisposed to a preference to revolutionary causes.

Ludgar follows the simple mercenary creed: Fight for those who pay the most. This is followed by many other creeds such as: Fight for those who you are sure will win, fight for those who really hate their enemy, and fight for those who don’t really care if you run away.

Sethel cares nothing for any cause that doesn’t further his own ends. Against the very secrets of the universe, revolution seems infinitesimal.

Who knows what Ves’sa wants. None of them could tell. Maybe time would reveal that to them.

As a bonus, Kathiya and Caspar are both interpersonal enough that they can hold a conversation for long periods of time. Ludgar tolerates it but gets bored quick. Conversation just gets Ves’sa angry, and while Sethel likes conversing, few like it when he does it to them.

‘The only problem I have,’ Ludgar said, ’is that they may be... too appropriate.’

Sethel’s interest broke from the pages, and his sly, deep eyes turned to Ludgar. ‘Go on…’

‘I’ve never seen a successful revolution in my time. Then again, you only hear of the ones that actually do succeed.’

‘Few people like to hear of failed revolts. Doesn’t inspire much hope.’

‘If they’re swept up in this business, I’m worried I’ll have lost them forever.’ Sethel watched him from the corner of his eye, maintaining his aloof image. Ludgar looked down into his mug with an expression that sat unnaturally on his face. There were scant few moments seeing Ludgar like this, lost deep in contemplative worry, even if only for a brief few moments. His eyes flicked up from his mug, meeting Sethel’s. He then leaned back in his chair and threw his head back, saying, ‘I’ll have lost two decent soldiers. It’ll be a hassle getting two more.’

‘I wouldn’t worry about it.’ He brought the glass to his lips, and closed his eyes, enjoying the satisfying feeling of being smarter than everyone around him. ‘The revolutionaries will either die or turn against the people they’re trying to help. From the uprisings deep into the wastes of the Dry Sea, all the way to the royal abdications of Kather-Miyer, and the Great Revolutions of Xandala, it all ends the same. People die, the head changes, more die. They’re called “revolutions,” after all. They always come around again. Hence the name.’

They sat in silence as they watched another merc patrol storm their way into the hovels of some unsuspecting people.

‘They seem quite forceful.’

‘When money’s involved, guild mercs can force their way into anything.’

‘Speaking of which, how are you even sure the spoon merchant can’t pay for the repercussions of Caspar’s assumed actions?’

‘He’s an antique soup spoon merchant. He can’t be on that much money, unless the guild mercs changed their rates. And I doubt they would have; that bitch has a hard time letting go.’

Sethel took a sip of his surprisingly nice drink and posed a question he wasn’t sure he really wanted the answer for.

‘Just who is this “bitch” you keep referring to?’

‘She’s like a tornado that only exists to suck up all the money from everyone around her.’

‘You’ll see.’ He said without taking his eyes from the patrol. ‘Come on, I’ve got a plan.’

‘You’re all fighters, aren’t you? Then why are you so shit at fighting?’ Ludgar yelled loud and hard as the guild mercs circled him, nursing their own injuries and pulling away those who couldn’t stand.

Something had changed in Ludgar, Sethel noted.

He was still just as violent, just as cocky, just as war hungry; but something was off about it.

One charged in, fist swinging at his face. Ludgar weaved to his outside and responded with his own right to the face. It crumpled his cheek, dislodging a few teeth. Ludgar put his foot behind the mercs, and pushed his fist further into his face, throwing him off balance and driving him into the cobbles below.

Another came in, thinking they’d found an opening. Ludgar saw right through it and met their fist with his own. His knuckles dug into their fingers with an audible crack, and the fingers bent out of place. A swift kick put her out the rest of the fight.

‘This is fucking nothing. Give me a real fight!’

Actually, maybe “changed” was the wrong choice of word.

Everything was just a little more exaggerated. His smile was wider, he moved faster, his fists were stronger, the grey of his eyes had brightened, turning more to a steel grey than the dull before, like the glint of light from a blade.

This time, Ludgar pounced at another, gripping him by the neck and head-butting him right in the nose. He reeled, and Ludgar kicked at his knee with his heel, bending it the wrong way. He fell to the ground, and two canines came and dragged him away.

‘I don’t know who you are,’ one said, ‘but I really hope there’s a bounty on you.’

A taller and better built merc stood in his way. An avian with a white head and brown body. As far as mercs go, this guy seemed different than most.

‘Keep back if you don’t want your shit kicked in,’ he commanded.

This guy was once a soldier, maybe in Evandis, maybe from the League. Either way, same thing, different paint. You can tell an actual soldier from a merc a mile away, even just from the discipline alone.

‘And you!’ He pointed at Sethel, who sat cross-legged on a low wall, enjoying the show.

‘I am a neutral party in all this, please ignore my presence.’

For Sethel, it really was quite wonderful to watch.

It was like there was more of him, not in size, certainly, but in spirit. Magic was at work here, a fascinating type of magic that Sethel had only just found.

While the courtyard of the guild headquarters was nothing outright special, in that unspecial, conservative, classic nature, it stood out from all other buildings in Savanti. Nice, high stone walls, proper battlements, watchtowers; it looked better fit for any city than the one it was currently in.

The main doors swung open, and the remaining mercs turned to them.

There it is. He knew if he cracked enough skulls, someone was bound to take notice.

A woman stepped down, and the eagle braced his body and gave a salute; an act which most mercs would never consider.

‘Commander.’

Not a small woman by any margin; she stood around the height of Ludgar, if not just a touch shorter, yet the way her long, wild hair was tied back into a large, loose ponytail, and how her tail seemed to carry that along made her seem far larger than she really was.

A thin scar etched into her ash grey fur ran from above her eye to just below her jawline, narrowly avoiding one of her powerful, amber eyes.

A dark overcoat, well suited to long travel, sat above sturdy leather, that protected a body that was no stranger to the tough business of combat. Well-toned and built for manoeuvring.

Her ensemble was roughly the same garb as Ludgar’s, if not better maintained, cleaned, and generally just made for sturdier, more expensive material.

Ludgar turned his head to her, wiping blood from his mouth with the back of his fist.

Her fiery eyes met his cold grey, and an expression washed over her face. A face of instant familiarity, sudden realization, and utter hate.

‘You.’ The words escaped her teeth with enough venom to necrotize flesh.

‘There’s the bitch tornado.’