Korvik was neither nobleman nor trader; however, like them he owed allegiance to none but himself. A blade in the dark, a double-agent for hire, his only friends were coin, silver, drink, and the forgiving priest. Roving lycans stalked the roads as lordless vampires plagued dead-fall chocked forests. In between patrolled the soldiers of one feudal lord or another, leaving only inns and domiciles as marginally safe havens for a few hours’ rest. He thrilled in the risk, proud at this far having kept his lifeblood within his own veins rather than spilled on the ground or down a night stalker’s gullet.
A dwarf-forged dagger sat under his arm in a lead-lined sheath beneath his cloak. Made of some strange green exotic metal, he knew to only draw it when fending off an over-zealous vampire or mindless undead. Another under his other arm, sheathed in supple leather, featured silver filigree of elven design. This and the human-crafted rapier stately dangling off his belt, boasting a bead of silver down its length, were his weapons of choice against lycans. These treasures, along with a “gift” from his first successful mark, a shirt of mythral mail, were what kept him alive from town to town, along with his father’s eyes and ears.
The spawn of a human tavern-wench and an elf patron, he’d grown up far slower than his peers — but this extended childhood in murderlands which brokered little mirth granted him the jaded maturity to make wetwork a way of life primarily, and a means of income secondarily. First he stole to tend to his ailing mother; then to pay for her funeral; finally to feed his starving self. With deft fingers and swift blades, he found himself marketable as an unseen shadow, wet with blood and weighted with another’s goods. Why not court death, rather than be merely stalked by it?
He hung perched on a tree branch, his breath slow, deep, controlled, and quiet. Below and away, he watched as a fracas of wolves and undead flailed on under the moon’s silver light. His mark was the werewolf with a shock of white down the nape of his neck, presently tangling with a female vampire. The thought crossed his mind that somewhere in the world such a pair-off might make for enticing smut, but here it was little more than sanctioned murder between opposing forces. Sure, a scandalous romance between ‘pyres and lycans was a gossip’s tale now and then, but it bore a flavor of political intrigue more than some taboo an outsider might thrill about. How little the world beyond truly knew of such things.
As he watched the battle bleed to a conclusion — in the wolves’ favor, he was happy to see — he gave a brief pat to a lump in his pocket before carefully, silently descending the tree. The vampress now lay dead, her head at an odd angle from a broken neck as her blood leaked from her mouth and wounds to blacken the stirred-up loam. Of the dozen lycans that had begun, there remained only three, who collectively fell on the vampire squad’s commander, a heavily armored individual wielding a two-handed sword taller than himself.
Korvik closed the distance, a long, narrow tube in his hands. He paused to watch the fray for a moment, one end held to his lips. The vampire swung and struck; the pipe puffed as a small, black-feathered dart flew through the trees. The lycan now lay in a deep sleep feigning death. Closer now, another strike and puff; only one each of the rivals remained standing. Finally, he pulled the lump from his pocket, a spherical vial full of a dark sticky substance. The blow-gun now followed behind him, an invisible arcane hand apparated to buoy it along. As his mark leapt from behind the fanged warrior to crush his neck between his jaws, he scooped up a discarded silvered blade of the vampires and dipped it in the vial.
Lycan and vampire thrashed about as the latter struggled for survival. Finally, he slumped to the ground as his body began to slowly dissolve into a mist that wafted against the breeze in a determined direction. Satisfied in his victory, the silver-naped werewolf straightened to stand of his foe’s disintegrating body. Suddenly, he jerked and twitched, flailing in panic and pain as the poisoned blade plunged into his back and an arm coiled over his shoulder to brace the strike.
”Barroness Hinterhünd sends her regards,” came the whispered words into the wolf’s ear. A howl of rage and betrayal began to build in his throat. The assassin severed both with one final plunge of the blade.
The baroness had been light on details when he’d taken the contract: kill the mark, make it look like the vampires did it. Korvik had already anticipated these conditions based on what he knew of the baroness and her rocky relationship with her now-dead captain. As her son, he had been entrusted with not only the security of her barony, but the extermination of her nearest rival — an earl and fellow lycan. Instead, so rumor claimed, he had begun trading secrets with said earl in exchange for promises of help and alliance when he launched a coup to displace his own mother.
When the gossip gained enough substance to seem more than idle hearsay, he made his presence in the village conveniently known to the baroness’ spies, and was promptly hired. He obtained a vampire-made poison — an extract of wolfsbane, sundry other toxins, and finely powdered silver blended and distilled into a mollases-like tar that would not easily wipe off of a blade. He bribed a soldier for the mark’s patrol schedule, which he then sold for a tidy profit to the neighboring ‘pyres, though deliberately under-estimating the payrol’s numbers. Then, he laid in wait for the two sides to kill each other.611Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡprtg8OlfgT
Now, he picked his way amongst the bodies. The female vampire he found easily enough. Her body was not disintegrating into mist, an indicator that she was neither as old or powerful as her late-commander. Still, she had one more use. He took his vial, clenched her icy fist around it, and smashed it against her breastplate, shattering the glass. Still keeping her fingers mostly closed around it, he spread the substance over her front, as though she had held it, accidentally broken it, and smeared the residue on her garments in an attempt to get it off. He then took the blade he’d borrowed from the lycan’s neck and wrapped the fingers of her other hand around it. Lastly, he went to the two lycans he’d sleep-darted and collected his ammunition. They would likely awaken, believing they had merely survived the fight by fate, and that after they had fallen, the deceitful vampress feigned death in order to slay their captain with a poisoned blade before succumbing to her own venom.
The scene set, he turned to retrieve his blow-gun from the phantasmal appendage he’d conjured, only to notice it was no longer in his possession. A shadowed figure with glowing silver eyes leaned against a tree as they turned the object over in their hands with curiousity. “It is a shame the vampires will not learn of their success against the Baroness tonight; not in time, at least,” she commented in seeming idle resignation.
A chill went down Korvik’s spine as he absorbed the words. This stranger had witnessed the fight, the poisoning, the alterations to the scene. It had not been a stipulation of his contract, but it was nonetheless a goal for maintaining his reputation: leave no witnesses of actual events. Yet somehow, this silver-eyed woman had witnessed the whole thing. She seemed to anticipate his thoughts and spoke before he could formulate a challenge.
”Go: collect your bounty. You’ll need it to pay for passage to the Moon Way Cove tavern on the docks in Blood Tide,” she said as she turned to leave; with her eyes mostly away from him now, she all but disappeared into the forest shadows.
”And what makes you think I’m going there, ever?” he asked after her in an attempt at defiance.
”To retrieve this,” she answered with a wave of the blow-gun, and then vanished amid tree and shadow. The only sounds remaining were the echoes of her words and the wind of his breath. Each inhale and exhale sounded loud and ragged in his ears, and as he processed everything, the drum of his heart became louder and faster as well.
Either the vampires or his mark’s allies may come after him in revenge for either the blame or the loss if they realized the truth of tonight. And she had just taken evidence linking back to him. Hating himself, he knew he had little choice but finish his business with Baroness Hinterhünd and go to Blood Tide, a port-city some eight days away by carriage. Damned blackmail.
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