Chapter 1: Aoife (part 3 of 3)

  Almost at the same time, there came a wave of renewed cheers from below. Aoife leaned forward to get a better look.

  The Wyverns were each tied down to wagons that took up nearly the entire width of Main Street. These rumbled sluggishly on the uneven cobblestones, each pulled by a veritable platoon of horses.

  Leading the procession was the larger of the two carcasses, too large still for the wagon and thus spilling over the sides. The scales on its dorsal surfaces were dark red—the colour of overripe cherries—and they had a murky sheen to them despite receiving barely any light from the overcast skies. Its winged arms were folded underneath its body, causing the widest portions of the wings to stick out to the sidewalks. City guards and onlookers alike had to duck to avoid getting clotheslined. Its tail, as thick as a beech trunk at the base, was carefully curled around its legs so not to let it fall to the ground, and the characteristic arrowhead tip poked out at the top of this pile.

  Perhaps most impressive was its head, which by itself dwarfed a man who walked beside it. Large spikes with a rocky appearance projected along the top of the head and down to the sides of the jaws. The fearsome, reptilian snout was agape, revealing vicious teeth that seemed to grow on top of each other with no distinct rows. Its forked tongue looked to be just as long as its tail; however, it was not afforded the same ceremony and was allowed to loll onto and drag along the cobblestones, gathering dirt. The eyes were spheres of translucent amber and large enough that Aoife could make out individual blood vessels beneath the surface.

  Following closely was a second wagon carrying the smaller of the two Wyverns. Though it was clearly the same species as the first, there were noticeable differences that gave Aoife the impression that it might also be the younger of the two. For one thing, it fit comfortably on the wagon and the wingtips barely reached past the edges of the platform. The scales presented a lighter shade of red with a brighter sheen—also cherry-like but as one that was just starting to ripen. The spikes on the head were also fewer in density and appeared to have rounder, smoother surfaces.

  But the second Wyvern also had a feature that drew the eyes and didn't let go. Namely, it was missing nearly half of its face.

  The right side of the skull, along with the eye and portions of the snout, had been blown clean off, leaving behind ragged edges and charred innards. The dramatic disfigurement left no question as to where and how the killing blow had been dealt. Inside this wound was a fleshy mess of red, grey, and black; there were no discernible structures but the bits of torn tissue and tangled, stringy objects left plenty to the imagination. Flies had been circling both carcasses but were practically swarming around this hole in the skull.

  For a moment, a strange mixture of glee and horror passed through the spectators on the street who didn't have the benefit of a rooftop view. The cheers first intensified with the arrival of the first wagon, then were broken up by gasps and hushed silence as the second wagon rolled into view. Some people vomited. More than a few children cried.

  Aoife couldn't smell much from where she sat, but she imagined that the air couldn't be pleasant nearer the wagons, especially if the Wyverns had been dead for some time during their transport. She glanced at Clodagh beside her. Her sister, who ran around with a rucksack filled with rocks in the name of endurance training, who hung around a retired adventurer like a puppy starved for attention, who moments ago was happily munching on a wad of candy, now looked on in shocked silence, unusually pale.

  There was at least one figure who was utterly unperturbed by it all. The man marching beside the head of the first Wyvern appeared to be a kind of leader of the parade. He was tall and decked out in an ornate plate armour—likely the Paladin of the returning party. He had taken his helmet off—exposing his flowing blond hair—and hadn't stopped waving and smiling at the crowd since he'd come into view. As the cheers died down momentarily, his voice suddenly rang out above the noise. "Thank you! Thank you, all! We are Valor Company, proud sons of Enfield. Glory to Thameside! Glory to Enfield! We are Valor Company!"

  With the Paladin's earnest encouragement and the waning of the initial shock, the crowd seemed to recover some of its enthusiasm. A period of sustained cheering resumed, though it never again reached the frenzy that was before the arrival of the wagons. Fatigue had set in and the stark brutality of a Malady hunt had dampened the mood, but the people were still determined to celebrate.

  Aoife wondered if the last Testimony had also devolved into this blend of palpable tension and manufactured merriment. Perhaps if it had also featured a rotting carcass with half of its skull missing... Clodagh was still frowning slightly, hadn't taken her eyes off the younger Wyvern, and hadn't spoken a word since the parade arrived. Against all odds, it was Mr Rockford who broke the silence among the rooftop trio. "It seems there was truth to the rumours about Valor Company. Word was they'd been planning on a big gambit. Seems they'd already managed to pull it off."

  Aoife looked again at the gaping wound. Whatever had inflicted it likely required an enormous amount of force to not only break through the scales and bones but also decimate a large area around it. What little she remembered of tales about Wyvern hunts normally told of lengthy, careful battles of attrition whereby the giant Maladies were hounded to exhaustion before a final onslaught. She had never heard of one being taken down by a single blow.

  "Do you think Valor Company got their hands on the... um," she began to ask, but couldn't remember the word she was thinking of. She only knew that it had a foreign sound to it. But Mr Rockford knew what she meant and nodded.

  "Aye, the Khiimori Apparatus," he said while pensively massaging a tuft of his beard. "Nothing else could have done that kind of damage. Everyone's looking at the little one with the missing face but the real story here is the big one. Not a scratch on her from what we can see. How do you think she died? I'll wager that if you flipped her over, you'd see her insides had been hollowed out, worse than the—"

  "Mr Rockford," Aoife cut him off, eyeing Clodagh as she did. Her sister had turned paler during his spiel and looked like she might be sick. Her eyes, still directed at the second wagon, was welling up with tears. The blacksmith looked over, startled and apologetic. He placed a large hand on Clodagh's back and spoke gently.

  "I'm sorry, child. Don't you pay any heed to the ramblings of an old man. Come, let's go inside. I'll get you a cuppa to wash down that candy of yours."

  With these words, Aoife became aware of her own thirst. Her mouth and throat were parched, partly from the conversation, but she knew it was mostly due to the heat she had burned on her rooftop excursion, a familiar side effect of her blood tricks. She would have welcomed more than a cup of tea but beside her, Clodagh shook her head firmly and rubbed at her eyes with the heels of her hands.

  "No," she said, voice steady, and there was a hint of quiet determination that rarely saw the light of day. "I want to see it through."

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  Aoife thought she understood. Despite what Aunt Cara might think, adventuring wasn't some idle fancy for Clodagh. On top of her rucksack exercises, she would often tiptoe out of the house before anyone had woken and return just before breakfast, sweating and breathing heavily. In the evenings, her nose would be buried in notebooks, studying hard so not to let her grades slip, or she could be found reading books about Magic she had borrowed from the school library, sometimes doing so late into the night, hiding a lamp under the bedsheets so not to disturb the rest of her family. So Aoife knew that, behind the girl who smiled sweetly and laughed easily everywhere she went, there was a young woman working diligently toward a dream and exhausting herself in the process. That was why she leaned closer to Clodagh now and put a hand on her head before turning to the blacksmith. "It's okay, Mr Rockford. That was my fault. I didn't mean to interrupt. Look, here comes the rest of the party."

  Behind the second wagon followed four more adventurers of Valor Company on horseback, riding in pairs. The front pair were a pretty, slim woman with a rapier slung from her hip and a dour-looking older man with a crossbow and a quiver of arrows on his back. They were presumably the Duelist and the Ranger of the group. Behind them rode a thin man in a simple white shirt that was covered in what looked to be dried blood stains, and beside him a bespectacled woman who had a bulky appearance from the numerous attachments and pouches that covered her from head to toe. Visually, they made for a rather odd couple. Aoife assumed the man was a Medic but was less certain about the woman's job. The extra storage on her person seemed to mostly carry strange, metallic objects, possibly tools of some kind. Maybe she was an Artificer?

  With the exception of the Ranger who chose to stare ahead with a grumpy expression, the rest of the party were also making an effort to smile and wave at the crowd, though clearly with more chagrin and less enthusiasm than the Paladin ahead of them. They yelled out a few phrases here and there, mostly unembellished words of gratitude.

  Behind the four riders was yet another wagon, much smaller than the ones carrying the Wyverns and closer in size to the ones normally seen around town for non-adventuring purposes. This one was filled with assorted packs, barrels, and boxes, including a large metal cage with several pigeons inside. Aoife decided this was likely a supply wagon of sorts. Her eyes were then drawn to the back of this wagon, where she spotted a hooded figure who sat and leaned against one of the boxes.

  The hooded man had his back to the rest of the procession and kept his head down, not looking at anyone or anything else and indeed barely moving at all. As the wagon rolled past, Aoife saw that his left arm wrapped around a long, mostly cylindrical object that rested against his shoulder. The object was greyish and seemed to be mostly made of metal, about the same height as the man's whole upper body and of a similar girth to his upper arm. There was an extension at the bottom of the cylinder, which looked to be a kind of handle. Aoife had never seen its like before. She also noticed that the hooded man was clutching at his left shoulder with his other hand, though there appeared to be no visible wound or bandaging.

  "Mr Rockford," Clodagh spoke up, pointing to the back of the supply wagon. Evidently, she had been eyeing the same thing. "Is he one of the adventurers?"

  "Aye," Mr Rockford nodded slowly, and Aoife was surprised to hear a marked distaste in his voice. "That would be the Dragoon."

  With that, Aoife suddenly had a name for the strange, cylindrical object. It was a blunderbuss, supposedly an invention of the East India Company and one of the chief reasons they were able to monopolize contracts with the Royal Navy. She had learnt of them only since moving to Thameside and before today, had never even pictured them in her head. From what she heard described of their capabilities, she would have expected something bigger and more menacing. The real thing wasn't small by any means, but it looked rather sleek and unassuming. It was difficult to imagine that this was the weapon that could trivialize hunts for powerful Maladies, tasks that were arduous and time-consuming just decades ago. Her curiosity piqued again, she turned back to Mr Rockford. "Is he the one that killed the Wyverns?"

  "Aye," he said again, and Aoife was now sure that she hadn't imagined the distaste earlier. Though his face remained impassive, his voice now contained a deep growl that sent a chill through her spine. "He had to be. There's no way those things"—he cocked his head toward the four riders ahead of the supply wagon, clearly referring to their respective weapons—"could have taken that chunk out of the Wyvern. More likely the rest of the party acted as distractions while this Dragoon lined up his shot."

  She turned to look at the Dragoon again. Though she couldn't see his face, she thought he was an average-looking fellow with a rather slight build. Not a towering presence like the Paladin, nor a graceful athlete like the Duelist. But among the party, he was the only one that could deal the lethal attacks that took down not one but two full-grown Wyverns. And now, while his mates basked in the dutiful adoration of the crowds, he was the only one that sat in the back, head cast down, suffering in silence. He looked absolutely spent, and completely alone.

  "Is he... hurt?" Clodagh mused with a tinge of concern. Aoife also looked to Mr Rockford and noted his heavy sigh. He didn't reply immediately, and seemed to choose his words carefully.

  "What gives the blunderbuss its awesome power is the Khiimori Apparatus," he began, the growl gone now. He sounded a little sad, almost remorseful, though Aoife couldn't imagine what for. "The Apparatus grants its user a great burst of energy, and it's effective. Gets the job done. Proof is right here in front of us. But it's also energy-hungry like nothing else I've seen before or since. It demands a hell of a lot in return for its output. Not just from the user, but also from all life around it. I've seen it. Grass, trees, animals... the life sucked out of them the moment a Dragoon fires off his shot.

  "Imagine that kind of power... an energy exchange of that magnitude, and one poor bastard trying to control it all. You could be the best damned Magicker in the land and it would still take a toll on you, maybe even tear your insides to shreds. Some will recover from it to fight another day. Others, well..."

  He gave a nod toward the slumped figure on the back of the wagon as if to say, see for yourself.

  "Why do they do it?" Clodagh said. The tears had dried and the colour had returned to her face, but she still sounded anxious, as though she were afraid to hear the answer. "I mean... if they could hurt themselves so badly, why... Aren't there other ways? Like how they did it in the old stories?"

  Mr Rockford let out a chuckle but there was no humour in it. "I suppose there's no turning back now to how we used to do things. Take Valor Company... the last few years haven't been kind to them. They were circling the drain even until recently. I don't know how they did it, but they've got their hands on a Khiimori, and you can see they've already used that to score themselves a big job. And more jobs will be rolling in now because of this. Though it remains to be seen how long they can keep it up for before the EIC swallows them up again."

  "But still," Clodagh urged, unsatisfied. Aoife knew what she was getting at, and felt the same consternation. But she also thought that she understood the answer, without Mr Rockford having to spell it out. "This Dragoon fellow... he's not going to be alright again, is he? Why was he willing to do it, knowing he might never be able to adventure again? Why would his friends let him?"

  Mr Rockford turned his massive frame toward them and looked first at Clodagh, then at Aoife. Strangely, he was smiling slightly yet he somehow managed to look utterly grim, the lines on his face casting shadows on themselves. Aoife felt herself shudder under his gaze. In that moment, he wasn't the strong, kindly blacksmith who had befriended her sister. Instead, he was a savage warrior, haunted by ghosts whose presence only he could sense.

  "He won't be the last one. When he's done, they'll pass the Apparatus onto someone else. Then another after that. It doesn't stop there. As we speak, adventurers around the world are scouring the lands, looking for more Apparatus, inventing new ways to use them. Soon it won't just be Dragoons. We'll see Paladins, Rangers, Elementalists, all with new ways to use their powers. And they'll keep going, hunting more Maladies, bringing back more loot, killing themselves and leaving behind a trail of destruction. Why do they do it, you ask? Well... I suppose it's the cost of fame and glory. I suppose it's the cost of doing business."

  Clodagh had asked the question, yet the retired adventurer looked into Aoife's eyes the whole time he spoke. It was as if he knew that no one needed to hear this more than her.