Way of the Wicked Chapter Eleven
For a mile in every direction, bugbears lay in slumbering heaps. Glutted on roasted pork, flush with the promise of impending bloodshed and plied with enough alcohol to fill a small lake, the horde had lost itself in riotous celebration until the early hours of the morning, and now was paying the price for it. Here and there a warrior stirred, those of stronger constitution than their kin or simply those intelligent enough to resist the urge to indulge to their uttermost, but for the most part the sprawling camp lay still. It was far from silent however, as the rasping snores of thousands of bugbears filled the air like a rumbling waterfall, while the combined stench of meat, blood and fur was enough to form an almost-solid miasma that lay over the whole scene like a thick blanket.
Mira stole her way through the disordered throng, placing each footstep with care so as not to awaken the doubtlessly foul-tempered beasts that slumbered nearby. She had remained in Sakkarot's tent throughout the night, a fact that would have doubtless inspired rumours in the crude minds of many savages, pleased to find a source of intelligent conversation even in the midst of such a barbarous throng. And with the conversation had come the alcohol, an endless supply of it that had eventually rendered the both of them thoroughly legless and more open than might ever have otherwise been the case. It was a pastime that would have doubtless struck many as deeply foolish or at least nonsensical, but to Mira's mind it made perfect sense. You could learn a lot about someone by seeing what they were like when they were drunk, and establishing bonds of companionship and understanding with the leader of this horde might very well serve her extremely well in the days and weeks to come. So long as she was careful to keep a supply of alchemically created antidote to hand, so that she might return to sobriety with speed if the situation called for it, there was little to no harm in pursuing such a course and much to be potentially gained.
Of course, she was also neither arrogant nor deluded enough to mistake the baser elements of her own motivations for anything more advanced. On some level, getting roaringly drunk was something that she saw as an end in and of itself. It had been this way for as long as she could remember, a fact that had caused her more conservative family members no small amount of distress. Her teenage years had been marked with an excess of such disgraceful activities, as she exercised the opportunities granted to her by social station and wealth alike to satiate her own desires, indulging in wine and good food and the companionship of similarly uninhibited individuals. After her parents had died, an event she still did not like to think of, those relatives had seized the opportunity to pressure her into taking her vows of military service earlier than otherwise planned, in the hopes that such discipline would straighten her out to some degree.
It was not a plan that had ever been destined for much success, for it was one built on a fundamental misunderstanding of her character. Mira enjoyed indulging her passions and held a collection of vices to impress even the most jaded soul, but they did not rule her. It was the main lesson that her Father - and even now, she could not think of him by name, for he would always be Father to her - had managed to impart to his daughter before passing from the world; the key to successful indulgence was, paradoxically, moderation. Too much of a good thing would turn even the sweetest pleasure into the foulest poison, but knowing how to pace yourself and how to counter the worst side-effects of your indulgences would lead to pleasure that could be extended for years without regret.
Military life, therefore, had not ground that philosophy out of her so much as it had emphasised it. Eat well, but keep up your exercise. Drink the night away, but be ready to stand your watch the next morning without complaint. Revel in the thrill of combat, the red-hot pulsing excitement of a blood-stained blade, but do not allow it to cloud your judgement and compromise your defenses. Live life to the fullest, but remember your duty. All of these lessons and more had she been taught, often by teachers unaware of the example they had been setting, and all of them she had committed to memory with the aid of a mind made keen by schooling and kept sharp by constant reinforcement.
It was, in truth, that element of her nature that had presented her with the most doubts when she truly sat back and contemplated what her new devotion to Asmodeus might demand of her. The reputation of the Pit was hardly one of ecstatic excess, the popular image of fire and iron far from comforting for one that might wish to take her pleasure between bouts of required duty. Would the Lord of Hell demand of her a life of grim asceticism in place of her previous extravagance? It was a change she could have made, she knew that without a doubt, a price that would have been paid willingly in exchange for the gift of her continued existence, but it would not have been a command she would have particularly relished obeying.
Fortunately, that had not proven necessary, as her studies into the philosophy and society of Hell had rapidly made clear. Asmodeus did not demand that all pleasure and satisfaction be surrendered before a soul could enter his service, merely that such things should be subordinate to his will and intentions, or even pressed into service in support of those aims. Mammon, the Argent Prince, embodied greed and the desire for material possessions in a way that she had never even thought possible before, while Belial was justly infamous throughout the planes for his lustful desires and seductive nature. That Asmodeus would go so far as to include both among the ranks of his Arch-Devils, even forging the Pale Kiss with his own hands, said much about how the Lord of Hell perceived the existence and pursuit of such impulses. She did not have to strangle her desires, merely ensure that they did not interfere with the pursuit of her mission.
Right now, that meant returning to the ship without further incident and getting underway before the sun rose any higher in the sky. The body of water that the horde camped by might be marked on official maps as Lake Tarik, but Mira was perfectly aware that in truth it was closer to an inland sea than anything so prosaic as a simple lake. The Frosthamar would take most of the day to cross it's width already, a journey made longer by the need to avoid detection and deliver her and Timeon covertly to the far side without being immediately ambushed by a roving patrol of soldiers. If she failed to make it back in time and delayed the completion of the mission... well, in truth it would hardly have much in the way of a substantial impact of the overall plan, but it would make a poor impression on Lord Thorn all the same, and that was something she would very much prefer to avoid if possible.
She rounded the slumbering bulk of a frost giant in much the same way as one might go around a small hill, and at last came within sight of the shoreline. The Frosthamar was still there, which was something of a relief, as she hadn't been entirely sure that Odenkirk's nerve would hold out long enough to remain docked for a night so close to such a collection of fearsome monsters. She'd given Timeon instruction not to allow the foreigner to sail off and abandon her here, but that didn't so much guarantee that her wishes would be followed such much as provide an incentive; Timeon had grown into a skilled and ruthless combatant under the gentle touch of Thorn's training, but that didn't necessarily make him the equal of six grown men in a fight.
As she approached the ship, clouds of smoke from the still-smoldering remains of the camp fires swirling around her like a cloak, she saw that Odenkirk had evidently set up a sentry rota. That he would do so was not a surprise, for the captain was evidently very attached to his ship and would do just about anything to avoid the possibility of her falling into the destructive hands of the bugbears, but she had not expected the man himself to take one of the watches personally. Yet there he was, wrapped in a thick cloak and holding his oversized axe, pushing himself to his feet as she approached the crude pier where the ship was docked.
"Finally." The captain grunted, looking her up and down. "I was beginning to think something had eaten you. Now we can get out of here."
Mira smiled faintly, striding into the dock and feeling the faint trembling of the wood underfoot as Odenkirk fell in behind her. "Anxious to leave, captain? It's not like you to shy from a confrontation."
Odenkirk simply snorted. "If those beasts decided they wanted to kill us, it wouldn't be a confrontation. We'd just die, and not quickly. So, yes, I want to leave, the sooner the better."
He was silent as the two of them reached the ship and stepped across the small gap onto the deck itself, only then mustering the will to speak once more. "Besides, I saw the thing that leads this horde. Big bastard, isn't he? But that's not nearly as bad as what I saw in his eyes." The captain ran one hand through his beard, a gesture she knew he tended to repeat when given reason to be nervous. "He was thinking. All the time, no matter where he was or what he was doing, you could see it in his eyes that he was plotting. That's just plain unsettling. Bugbears should not be smart."
Now Mira's faint expression became a full-sized smile, though she hid it from the captain by the simple expedient of moving across the deck and leaning on the rails at the far side, staring out over the lake. It was true what Odenkirk said; Sakkarot was smart. Even if she hadn't spent most of the night talking with him, the simple fact of the matter was that no one managed to pull together an army like this without some kind of intelligence to work with. There were just too many factors to account for, too many things that needed to be done or monitored just in order to keep such a large force in one place for any length of time without it collapsing in utter disorder, never mind actually getting it moving and then leading it into battle. Even a human army of professional soldiers would have posed a severe logistical challenge to anyone trying to command them as a singular unit, and they had advantages of discipline and organisation that the bugbears simply did not possess.
Any soldier knew that a smart enemy was the very worst kind to fight, especially if that intellect was paired with physical brawn and an aggressive spirit. You couldn't rely on anything when facing an intelligent foe, for they could likely anticipate and adapt to your every move, which was why the element of surprise was often so utterly overwhelming in war. But no one in the Talirean military would be expecting to fight an intelligent opponent, because the commonly accepted wisdom was that the races of the north were nothing more than a collection of idiot barbarians, with the possible exceptions of the ice elves in their glittering cities on the coast. They would expect to be going into battle against a crude and uncivilized foe, one with no understanding or appreciation for proper tactics and military strategy, and for that hubris Sakkarot was going to punish them severely. Oh, they'd wise up in time, start treating their enemy with the respect that he deserved, but by that point it might very well be too late for it to make any real difference.
Still, those were considerations for the future. Right now she had a mission to complete, and some loose ends to tie up. So, still not turning around less Odenkirk see the satisfaction and malice in her eyes and somehow manage to correctly interpret it, she spoke.
"Just get us moving, captain. One more day, and then we will part ways, and you will no longer have to concern yourself with this island or the intelligent bugbears that threaten it."
-/-
The dagger, slim and sharpened to the point where it almost resembled a needle, slid neatly between the sailor's ribs and pierced his heart in a single smooth motion. The Norseman twitched and tried to cry out, but the leather-gloved hand that was wrapped around his jaw was quite effective at stifling any sound. He thrashed weakly, compelled by the most basic instincts to make some attempt at defending his life, then the strength left his limbs and he collapsed to the deck, the firm grasp of the hands guiding him down gently and without any fuss.
His face set in an expressionless mask, Timeon withdrew the dagger from his victim's back and used one of the sailor's sleeves to carefully wipe away the gore. In a distant part of his mind, he compared his own current mental state to the likely reaction he would have had to such a deed not even half a year ago, and marveled at the difference. Of course, six months ago he'd still been a loyal servant of Sir Balin and an aspiring knight of the realm, whereas now... well, now he was both more and less than that at the same time.
It was a strange thing, to witness the passing of your own damnation in the full and total knowledge of what was happening. He wasn't quite sure at what point his soul had finally become truly stained by the things that he had seen and done, if indeed corruption could truly be measured in such a binary fashion, but there was no doubt in his mind that it had happened at some point during the three months he had spent under Lord Thorn's tutelage. If he had to guess, it was probably around the time that he had stopped seeing his lessons as a necessary burden to bear and begun embracing them as the peerless opportunities that they were, but it was always possible that he was mixing up cause and effect in some fashion. After all, an eager appreciation for infernal theology, cold-hearted techniques of silent murder and the more lethal applications of certain chemicals was hardly the sort of trait one associated with the pure of heart.
It would have been easy to blame Thorn and Mirabelle for such things, condemning them for taking him away from everything he had ever known and then saturating his mind in such forbidden knowledge until it was inevitable that he finally broke, but shirking his own responsibility in such a fashion didn't sit right with him. His mother had always impressed upon him how important it was to be honest within the confines of your own mind, rather than allowing yourself to get caught up in delusion and the twisted perspectives that self-deception could inflict, and while he doubted she would have approved of how he had applied those lessons he'd held true to them all his life.
And the truth was, he had started to enjoy it. In the library of that mansion he had begun to appreciate why some men dedicated their lives to scholastic pursuits, and why every year or so one of them went too far and wound up on an inquisitor's pyre. There was a kind of satisfaction and joy to be found in the acquisition of knowledge that he had never even conceived of before, a feeling that only intensified when he began broaching rarer and more specialized topics, as though a world formerly drawn in black and white was slowly being illuminated with the glorious colours of increased understanding. It was a heady sensation far superior to the intoxicated haze brought about by his few experiments with alcohol, and he had swiftly learned that it could be achieved through many more sources that just humble book-learning.
Every time he perfected a draught, every time he snuck unnoticed past one of the servants or scored a point in the free-form spars that were part of the combat training, every time he acquired a new capability or proved his own worth he was rewarded with that same incredible rush. He'd resisted it for a week or two, vaguely recalled sermons about the dangers of self-gratification echoing through his mind, but in the end he'd come to the realization that all he was doing was making himself miserable for no apparent gain, and he'd had quite enough other troubles to occupy his mind without adding self-inflicted emotional torment to the pile.
He still didn't enjoy the killing, though, which brought him back to the corpse of the sailor currently lying at his feet. It had brought him no joy or satisfaction to take the man's life, and indeed if given the chance he would have preferred to spare him, but such was simply not an option. Lord Thorn had commanded that Odenkirk's crew be eliminated at the conclusion of their journey, and Lady Mirabelle agreed, so the possibility of doing otherwise had been removed and all that was left was the simple matter of execution. At least he could reward the man's service by making his end quick and painless, rather than drawing it out in some elaborate game or otherwise prolonging the suffering.
He thought about hiding the body, either among some of the nearby sailing equipment or through the simple expedient of tipping it over the side, but swiftly decided against it. Aside from Odenkirk there were only five members of his crew left, and he'd already dealt with one of those in the cargo hold belowdecks before coming up here to ambush this one. That left just three others for him to take care of tonight, and the risk of any of them stumbling across the body wasn't worth the extra time and effort it would take to mitigate it. Decided, he slid the dagger back into its sheath and left the body where it lay, moving back along the length of the ship in the direction of the prow.
It didn't take long to locate the other three sailors, all of whom were sitting in a circle on the deck playing some kind of complicated-looking game with dice and a series of small tokens. The sun had begun to set just as they'd come within sight of Lake Tarik's southern shores, and since neither Mira nor Timeon much fancied blundering around in an unfamiliar countryside in the dead of night they'd made the decision to spend one more night aboard the Frosthamar before parting ways. That was the official excuse they'd used, though of course both their real reasons and the false motives they'd allowed the crew to pick up on had been somewhat different. It was a little distracting to think in so many layers all of the time, but the end result had proven to be worth the investment.
Fixing an inquisitive and vaguely amused smile on his face, Timeon moved out of the shadows and took a seat in the small ring that the sailors had formed, the nearest one shuffling sideways a bit to allow him room. He'd spent more time with them than his superior had over the course of the journey so far, enough to pick up the most rudimentary elements of their language and the general rules of the game they were currently playing, so they greeted him as something resembling a friend and made no move to raise their guards as he settled in beside them. One of them muttered a welcome, an expression he returned after studying the dice for a moment, before tilting his head towards the ship's line cabin and raising an inquisitive eyebrow.
That earned him a round of coarse, if subdued laughter, the sailor on his left making an obscene gesture with his free hand even as he picked up the dice and rolled them once again. That was the reason they thought that Timeon and his beautiful mistress had stayed on board for another night, for half an hour ago Mira had retreated in there with Odenkirk and had yet to emerge. The sailors were convinced that their large and intimidating captain had finally managed to seduce the beautiful warrior-woman they'd spent the last few weeks shuttling around, and were therefore currently overcome with amusement and jealousy both, whereas Timeon was quietly sure that the knight's subtle proposition had rather more to do with the chance to get Odenkirk away from his crew and out of armour without arousing suspicion.
Or perhaps she really had decided to bed him, intent on satisfying some strange curiosity before completing her assignment and cutting his throat. He couldn't pretend to entirely understand her actions and motivations, even after months of working by her side in a relationship that had occupied almost every waking hour. Every time he'd begun to think he had her figured out she would do something new and unexpected, and half the time he wasn't sure if it reflected some new aspect of her personality or was simple an expression of deliberate contrariness.
Either way, it didn't concern him, and beyond that he simply couldn't bring himself to care. It had been something of a surprise the first time he'd walked in on her and Dostan sharing a bed, but in the long run all it had really done was convince him that his new commander was every bit as human as he was, and not the fiery paragon of infernal might she sometimes seemed to be. He thought he preferred that option, for it was always nice to be able to relate to your teammates and commanders, and such common ground meant he already understood her better than he ever had Sir Balin.
One of these days, he might even be able to forgive her for murdering the pious knight in front of him. Not just yet though.
The sailor on his right laughed as his companion rolled a shockingly poor combination of dice, then smacked Timeon on the arm to indicate that the ex-squire should take a turn. Still smiling, Timeon nodded and plucked up the dice from where they lay and rolled them around in his hand, taking a moment to fix a plan of action in his mind before tossing them down on the deck. The sailors, all interested to see what his results would be leaned in, and as a result they were all staring directly at it when the small glass orb that Timeon had thrown with the dice struck the wooden deck and detonated.
He'd always had a love for alchemy, even if that passion had mostly been theoretical before Thorn had taken him in, and now his hobby was drawing fruit. The carefully chosen mixture of chemicals inside the capsule produced a bright flash when they reacted with one another, swiftly followed by a billowing cloud of smoke that engulfed the group in its choking embrace. Quite harmless in an absolute sense, the concoction still tended to produce a momentary blindness and disorientation in those exposed to it, and that could quite easily prove fatal in the right circumstances.
Even as he closed his eyes to prevent the flash from blinding him, Timeon was reaching for his belt, and by the time he heard the sharp crack that indicated a successful detonation he already had steel in his hand. The knife flickered out with deadly precision, slicing straight through the exposed throat of the man on his left and drawing forth a vibrant arc of crimson blood. Not stopping to confirm the kill he reversed the knife and brought it back around, the cold steel producing a faint whistling noise as it cut through the cloud of smoke and then buried itself in the chest of the man to his right. He left it there, embedded it what was surely a mortal wound, already coiling his legs back under his torso and then throwing himself forwards through the smoke.
The final sailor had been sitting almost directly opposite him, rendered little more than a dark shape by the billowing smoke that was even now beginning to disperse from around them. He was rising to his feet, coughing and swearing but not yet understanding quite what was happening, and that made him an easy target. Timeon hit him in the gut, a headlong tackle that sent the two of them tumbling away across the deck in a tangle of limbs. Unprepared for the sudden violence of the maneuver, the sailor was unable to control his fall, and the back of his skull struck the deck with a dull crunch. It might have been a fatal wound on its own, given time, but Timeon was in no mood to take chances on such a topic. The disorientated and only half-conscious sailor barely even managed to put up any resistance as his killer drew another knife and opened his jugular with a short and simple motion, and the other two were already on the way out when he finished the job a moment later.
Breathing hard, though more from the sudden spike of adrenaline than any real exertion, Timeon carefully retrieved his blades and wiped them clean before returning them to their sheathes. He took a moment to check himself over for any injuries possibly sustained in the brief tussle, and once satisfied paused in consideration before scooping up the small pile of coins the sailors had been gambling with and adding them to his purse. That done, he straightened himself up and moved over towards the captain's cabin.
The door opened before he could get there, a fully-armored Mirabelle striding out onto the deck with her sword in one hand and a small chest tucked under the other arm. He couldn't see Odenkirk from here, but the knight seemed fairly relaxed and her face was marked with a few specks of dark red, so he decided he didn't really need or want to know more. Instead he simply straightened up as she approached and tossed off something resembling a laconic salute.
"Any problems?" Mira asked with a smile, glancing around the deck with a look of approval in her emerald eyes.
"None." He replied simply, trusting that the evidence would speak for itself in terms of further details. "We done here?"
"Yes. Load our supplies into one of the small fishing boats, then use the lamp oil to soak the decks. I take it you can rig up a fuse of some kind? Good. We'll burn this thing to the waterline and row ashore. Aldencross shouldn't be more than a couple of miles away, and maybe there I can at last get a fucking bath."