Chapter 14: Red Handed

 

Thane was dreaming again, replaying a memory from five years ago.

He was 12 years old again, training in swordplay with his father.  Every move his father made was flawless and swift, it was difficult to imagine ever reaching his level.  Even Castor said that he had never been a match for him.  He was swinging around the greatsword with ease, the same sword that was destroyed by the Nocturnal Ichor just one night ago.  The young Thane tried to mimic his movements but couldn’t quite get them right.  He had to keep practicing if he was going to be good enough to protect his family and friends.

“Dear, why do you push the boy so hard?”  He heard his mother calling from the entryway of the house.

His father laughed, “He enjoys it, and he picks things up fast, he’s naturally gifted, like my sister.  He even managed to get the hang of archery better than I ever could.”

His voice turned serious, “Besides, he will need to be strong, we all will.  Nothing lasts forever.”

Thane heard someone call for his father to help in moving a stuck plow, and he kept practicing his swings after his father left.  He did this until his mother walked up to him and he paused to go talk to her.  It was then that Thane realized what day this was.  

“No, I don’t want to watch this again.”

His mother kneeled down and wiped the sweat from his face.  “Your father is right, you know.  You do need to be strong.  Learn everything you can, train as hard as you can.  Use what you learn to keep you and your friends safe.  In the end there will be peace, but you must fight harder than anyone to get there.”

She then said something that Thane forgot about.  The first time he heard the words, he was too distracted to fully comprehend what she said next.  “Dear mother, I am coming to your side soon.  Please pass on your blessing to this child and watch over him as you have watched over me for all these years.”  She then placed a kiss on Thane's forehead and walked over to his father.

“Mother…” , still slightly confused, the boy followed her as she walked over to his father. 

“I don’t want to see this again.”

Suddenly his mother coughed and staggered. “No...too soon.” She reached out her hands trying to grab her husband's arm.  

He caught her and called out her name, “Aille, Aille are you alright?  Please say something!”

When he pulled her up, her head rolled back and Thane saw her face, as well as the first and last signs of the blood plague.  Her eyes, mouth, ears and nose were all leaking blood.  He didn’t want to look, he tried to turn away, but this was a memory.  In the memory all he could do was stare and cry as his father screamed in pain.  He felt a hand on his shoulder trying to comfort him, something that never actually happened, but he couldn’t look to see who it was.  

When he woke there were fresh tears in his eyes and he was confused.  He remembered the last words his mother said but couldn’t properly remember or decipher the last part until now.  Somehow his mother knew she was going to die that day.   

***************************

-Sarah-

 

  The group split into three earlier that morning.  Mahs was accompanying Gailwyn to negotiate a good deal with the man who originally sold those herbs.  Thane went off by himself to go get his payment from the syndicate in lowtown.  Which left her, Kisha and Stone to accompany this noble girl in confronting the man who set her up to die.  

Seriously, while her brother and her...Thane were off collecting money, she was stuck confronting some man who just might be a mage with enough firepower to burn down a caravan and char broil two dozen guards.

To make things worse, the Amara girl was just sitting back and relaxing.  While everyone was out working she got left behind because she was “just a girl”.  It still shocked her that only she and Thane had realized just how dangerous that “girl” really was.  

The others were fairly calm about this, Kisha was convinced that even if he was dangerous,  he wouldn’t start much of a ruckus in a big city.  Stone simply replied to her concerns with “I will protect you”.  She felt like if she ever hears that man say more than five words at a time, she would probably die from shock.   

So now the four of them are in hightown, looking for the temporary residence of a wealthy merchant turned Rhaetian Viscount named George Santos.  The man who was responsible for setting up the ill fated caravan, and possibly the man who destroyed it.

Kisha and Stone were kind of relaxed and took the opportunity to go shopping at some of the overpriced hightown merchants.  Stone was currently having a conversation with a dwarven blacksmith that was rubbing his chin while looking over a curved sword.  She recognized it as one of the better blades they had salvaged from the orcs earlier.  The dwarf nodded and held out his palm.  Kisha opened up her pouch and handed the man a few coins before they rejoined Sarah.

“What was all that?” Sarah asked.

“Oh, Stone wanted a decent dagger so we went to get that blade altered.”

“Dagger?  That's a cutlass...well I suppose it would be a dagger in his hands.  A few silver coins to lengthen the tang and get a new handle is it?  Why were you the one paying?”

“Um, his hands are too big to hold the coins properly so he asked me to carry them for him.”

“Pfft”, ok, that is actually kind of funny she thought.

The one thing that surprised Sarah was the symbols that seemed to be on several buildings around the area.  She didn’t expect to see them outside of lowtown, but they were here.  Most of them were the engraving of the hand, obviously the mark of whatever syndicate was operating in this town.  It was basically a territorial marker, something similar to a dog pissing on the corners of the buildings to keep other dogs away.

And it had to be a very large dog if it was pissing on corners in hightown.

“Are you finished with your business?” Ruby asked, “I have found the manor we are looking for. 

The manor was one of a handful of very ornate temporary residences that the lord rented out to visiting VIPs and nobles.  This Southern Viscount was one of them.  The manor only had one visible servant, an old maid who guided them through the entryway and down a hall to the study.  When they entered they saw a finely dressed man with black hair and a neatly trimmed and styled thin beard framing his face.  He was in the middle of writing when they entered and he set down his writing quill to greet them.

He bowed, “Viscount Santos at your service.”  He greeted Ruby and the giant who ducked his head in order to enter the doorway to the room.  Luckily for him the nobles liked high vaulted ceilings so he was able to stand upright in the halls and rooms, but still had to crouch to enter the doors.  Kisha was still standing in the doorway and Sarah was concealed in the hall and had yet to reveal herself.   

“Greetings Lord Santos, I am-”

“Still alive!” the Viscount replied with a smile.  He placed the back of his hand over his forehead in mock surprise.  “Oh and how dreadful, you appear to have caught me in the midst of writing highly incriminating letters to my co-conspirators.”

Kisha and Sarah looked at each other and nodded.  They both recognized the voice.  This was one of the two men they had overheard plotting the destruction of the caravan.  To be more specific, this was the man who was ordered to “rain down fire”.  The two girls both entered, Kisha stood a few steps away from the others, and Sarah used her magic to make herself invisible before silently entering the room.  She creeped around the edge of the room to position herself behind the mage while they talked.

Ruby was obviously surprised by his reaction.  She couldn’t keep her composure and was in a mixed state of confusion and anger.  “What sort of game are you playing here?” she asked, “were you expecting us?”

“Of course I was, and I even took precious moments out of my day to prepare the evidence for you to strike back at the wicked souls that planned and tried to profit from your tragedy.”

“You expect me to believe evidence that you prepared beforehand?  Who knows what lies you have prepared?”

“I assure you young miss, that I am many things, but a liar will never be one of them. I am, if anything, a purveyor of truth.  I tell things as they are,” he twisted his neck to look away from the young noble and arched his head to the side until he made direct eye contact with the invisible Sarah, “and I see things as they are.”

Realizing she had to attack now or never, she gripped her knives tightly and brought them up to strike.  The mage smiled and closed his eyes, holding them closed for two seconds, and Sarah began to move in to strike.  However, when the man opened his eyes again she stopped and took a step back. Then leapt back in a panic bumping into a desk at the wall and losing concentration on her invisibility spell.  The man’s eyes were gone.

No they weren’t truly gone, they were still there, they were just different.  There was no white, no iris, no pupil, instead it looked like the round orbs were made of swirling molten metal.  She had seen eyes like this before.  It would be more correct to say she had read about them and seen illustrations.  This man wasn’t a mage at all.

Sarah extended her arm pointing the dagger at the man in a futile attempt at scaring him off, “D, Dragon…” she said.

“Now there is a proper response,” George said, “perhaps I should have made myself clearer from the start.  I’m giving you a gift, you should accept it.  Even the smallest amount of investigating will reveal the truth in those letters.  You should take them and leave, I would hate to have to burn another fine house to the ground.”

“You!” Ruby shouted and tried to approach the man but Stone was holding her back with one hand, “you burned my home, you killed my father!”

“I may have burned your home, but you know as well as I do that the man was not your father.  It took a bit of investigating but I did find out who you are.  Perhaps if you thought back to your real father you would figure out why all this is happening.”

“Why?  Why did you do this, why did you try to kill me?”

“Try to kill you?  What makes you think I would do that?  You were protected both times were you not?  First by that maid and secondly by that priest who cast the protective spell on you to shield you from my fire.”  He began to walk over to Sarah, “Honestly, I wanted nothing to do with this whole mess, but the old man insisted.  I have plans of my own, you know, plans that are extremely difficult to accomplish while dead. So I obeyed his orders.”

He walked up close to Sarah and she held one of her daggers up to the man’s neck.  She kept it firmly pressed against his carotid artery but he simply smiled and walked closer until they were mere inches from each other.  “That is a lovely knife, mind if I borrow it for a moment?”  Without looking he grabbed the blade of her second dagger and pulled it out of her hand, letting the first remain firmly pressed against his neck.  The whole time his mocking smile never cracked or faded.  He walked back over to the desk he was writing at and sniffed the blade.  “Do you ever wash this thing or do you just wipe it down?  It smells like weeks old orc blood.”

Everyone else in the room was silent, carefully watching the molten eyed man while nervously preparing to defend themselves.

“So who is it?  Who is responsible for all the deaths?”

“Directly?  Me of course.  Indirectly?  The people in these letters that I have so painstakingly written...and also my father.” He grabbed an apple from a bowl at the desk and cut off a slice of fruit with the bloodstained knife before popping it into his mouth.

“But why?”

He shrugged and popped another apple slice into his mouth.  “No idea, if you don’t know you could easily have found out by letting him catch you.  Instead you run and hide like a little rabbit.  It could have been something your parents did, or your great grandparents.  The old man doesn’t tend to let go of grudges.”  He cut another slice of apple but instead of eating it he flipped it over and carved a small V shape into the peel at the edge.  He slid the knife under the skin causing the V shaped piece to fall to the floor and the remaining bit of peel to curl up like rabbit ears.  “Would Lady Astley like an apple slice?” He waved the small apple rabbit in the air, “I even carved it to look like you.”

She gave him a hostile glare, “No, thank you.  Aren’t you still going to try to ‘catch’ me?”

“Good heavens no.  In fact I never tried to catch you in  the first place.  The senile lizard told me to not even attempt to approach you.  Thankfully the old man is now a thousand leagues away and no longer breathing down my neck.  Now I can go back to my own plans.”  He set the apple rabbit on the table and was dangling the knife over it pinched between his thumb and forefinger. “And you should make new plans of your own.  He's gone and frustrated, and might even think you are dead.  If you want to stay alive, then Lady Astley should never show her face again.  If you ever do emerge as Lady Astley again, he will come back.  Maybe it won't be for a couple decades, maybe he’ll come after your children.  It will be a dagger hanging over your head for the rest of your life until…” he let go of the dangling dagger and it fell onto the desk, splitting the apple rabbit in half. He gave a bored shrug and bit into the last bits of apple he was holding. 

“Now if you’ll excuse me I have a carriage waiting for me outside.”

Ruby made an attempt to move on the man but was once again held back by Stone who gave a stern glare and shook his head “no”.  He pushed her back and let the man pass.

He paused on the other side of the door and looked back at them.  “How was that last bit of dramatic flair at the end?  I do love putting on a good show.  I swore the silver haired girl looked like she was about to jump out of her skin when that dagger hit the table.”  He gave a laugh as he walked down the hallway.

Just like that the immense pressure from the man who dominated the room a moment ago was gone.  Ruby finally freed herself from Stone and was grabbing the papers at the table.  “I...we need to take a look at these papers and talk to Gailwyn.  He was right.  If something like that is after me, Lady Astley needs to stay dead.”

---------------------------------

-Thane-

 

   Thane was by himself enjoying the sights and smells of lowtown.  It didn’t seem this bad two days ago, but today he regretted being born with a nose.  He entered the small bar where he first received the job and saw it was mostly empty save for the old bartender with an eyepatch and a man sitting at a table in the corner.   

Thane went to talk to the bartender, “I’m looking for...you know actually I don’t think I got any of your names.  I’m looking for the guy who hired me to kill those monsters two nights ago.”

The old man grunted and pointed to a stool, “He knows you’re here by now.  Sit tight and he’ll be here.”

Thane looked over to the man in the corner.  The man was cloaked and hooded head to toe and was even wearing gloves so that no skin was showing.  He looked to be pretty well built under the cloak, but it was hard to tell.  The man was obviously large and Thane assumed he was some sort of security or guard.

“You, when I mentioned Maria earlier, you had an odd reaction, did you know her?”

The man froze and tensed up, “Only by reputation.”

“Oh, and what was that reputation?”

The man looked around concerned and hesitated to speak.  He let out a sigh of relief when the man who hired Thane a few days ago entered with the same two companions from the previous encounter.  “You... how you doing?  You guys made it out ok?”

Thane nodded, “Yeah, my team took a few hits but we all survived, but one of the two that came to help us got bit in half by that big thing.  Have there been any more sightings or was that all of them?”

The man scratched his head, “Nothing else since that night.  I had no idea anything like that would happen, a bunch of people came to watch when they heard the fighting.  But when that wall of darkness went away and the big guy showed up they all hit the floor.  Two of them got so scared that their hearts gave out and they died on the spot.  Three more...disappeared.”

“I saw it happen to one of them.  He was...eaten by his own shadow.  You hear legends about that kind of thing but that shit just doesn’t seem real until it happens right in front of you.”  After a bit of silence he continued, “I suppose you are here for your pay?”  He got behind the bar counter and reached below pulling out a pouch of coins.  “Five silver per confirmed kill, counting the big guy that was 7 kills bringing the total to 45 silver.”

“It was more than seven, and I think that big guy should be worth more.”

“Should be, but that isn’t what we agreed on.  Five silver per confirmed kill, after you ran past the wall of darkness we couldn’t confirm what was killed by you and what was killed by the highborn.  Plus one was killed by that little girl who wasn’t part of our agreement so that one didn’t count either.”

“Are you really trying to pull this? We risked our lives out there.”  

“You’re lucky I changed the terms of the deal or you wouldn’t be getting anything at all.”

“I remember, five silver per ‘corpse’ when you knew there wouldn’t be a corpse to recover.”

“I only changed it because I didn’t want any beef with the whispers.  It’s your own fault you didn’t add your own stipulations and just agreed to the deal.  So the total is 45 silver.  If you don’t take it…”

The man was interrupted by a loud thump coming from the corner of the bar.  The thump repeated itself a few times and Thane looked to see the burly man sitting in the corner repeatedly tapping his finger on the table.  The finger was hitting a little harder than it should, or the wood of the table carried sound very well because the thumping of his index finger sounded like someone was punching the table hard.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the man said, “drumming my fingers while I am thinking is a bad habit of mine.  Perhaps I could lend a hand before your negotiation becomes an altercation.”  Once the room had calmed down he continued, “I may have something for the boy that would put the payment in his favor but...I will need an exchange.  Let me see your sword boy.  The one on your back, not your waist.”

Thane detached the sheath from his back and handed his ruined greatsword over to the cloaked man.  He pulled it out and examined it closely.  “This poor blade looks like it will never cut again.  Did you try mending magic on it?”

“I did, but the damage couldn’t be repaired.”

“A pity, there are probably only three mages who have the proper skills to fix this now, and it wouldn’t be worth it for an ordinary blade.  I do know someone who would be interested in it, even in it’s damaged condition.”

The man put Thane's sword back in the sheath and reached behind him pulling out a different sheathed greatsword.  He tossed it over to Thane, “Take this and the 45 silver in exchange for your work and this damaged sword.  Pull it out and take a look at it, I’m sure you will find the offer more than fair.”

“Boss, you didn’t need to do that.” said the man who counted out the coins.

“You’re the boss?”

The cloaked man growled, “Yes, I will have to remind my men about the importance of revealing as little information as possible.”

“The symbols that look like hands, is that you?”  Thane pulled the sword several centimeters out of its sheath and let out a gasp.  He could tell when he first held it that it was light and very well balanced, but the blade itself surprised him.  The metal on the sword had a red tint to it as if the metal had somehow been dyed during the forging process, but Thane could somehow tell this was it’s natural color.  Another thing was that once the blade had been unsheathed it felt like it was humming.  A quick circulation of mana in his eyes and he could see that there was magic flowing through the sword.

“Yes, that symbol represents me and my men.  ‘He's moving his pieces with that red hand of his, he's dipping that red hand into something again.’  They liked to joke about it so much I decided to take the Red Hand as a nickname.”

“Is your hand really red?  Is that why you wear gloves?”  Thane pushed his new greatsword back into its sheath satisfied with the trade.

“One thing you need to know if you want to deal with people like us is to not pry into personal affairs and not to ask too many questions.”

“I understand, and I accept the deal.  It was a pleasure doing business with you.”

“You as well, young Viscam.”

Thane grabbed the coins off the table and left to rejoin his friends.  He would have Gailwyn take a look at the sword when he returned to make sure it was perfectly safe.  After all, he knew it had magic in it and he had to make sure none of it was harmful to the wielder.

Still, there was something nagging him in the back of his mind.  He knew he had heard the name the Red Hand before, but he couldn’t quite remember where.

------------------------------

-Evelyn-

 

The Syphus house was in a panic.  Not because of the death of her sister, no, she knew that nobody else in the household would care about that.  The household was in a panic because the old man had shown up.  Even her father was walking on eggshells around him.  He had retired from being a city lord long ago, but he still had more power than her father when it came to family matters.  The old man was agitated because of a visitor to the city, a man whose “head was thicker than his hammer”.  

Evelyn knew the man he was talking about, and knew he was a cause of trouble every time he visited.  But for some odd reason, this time her grandfather ordered HER to deal with it.  He told her that “this time his visit will be of particular interest to you.”

So that brought her to this moment.  She was roaming the streets of her city towards the South marketplace with a dozen guards in tow.  She was hoping she could prevent the leader of Pathos’ inquisitors from murdering someone in the streets again.

When she found him he looked like he was seconds away from a fight.  It was just words so far but knowing him it wouldn’t take long for weapons to be drawn.  This time he had a group of allies around him, all armored paladins, and was facing down a scholarly looking woman and a man about her age that she recognized.  The man was part of Thane’s group, he was the one who panicked and dropped his weapon when they fought the fear eaters.  She was still surprised he didn’t wind up dead of fright when that fake nightgaunt showed up. 

Lined up next to them were a group of heavily armed and armored warriors.  She tried to get a look at their banner as she approached, and when she finally saw it she panicked.  Those weren’t warriors, they were Knights of Reolve.  Her walk turned into a run in hopes she could cool things down before they came to blows.  A bloodbath in the streets was bad enough, a bloodbath leading to a war was something else entirely. “Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit.” she cursed with each step.

When she arrived the boy gave her a suave smile and greeted her with a bow, “Lady Syphus, I am glad to see your bea-”

Not now milksop,” she interrupted and pushed past him.  “Is there an issue here that the city should know about?”

The woman, who had a large leatherbound book in her hands, was the first to reply.  “I believe so.  This man is planning on apprehending a few of my recruits, despite the fact that they were found innocent in a blessed trial by combat.  The champion of Pathos was defeated by a champion of...who was it again?  To go up against such a powerful and combative god it must have been a deity of equal power, right?  Was it Merrick?  Forstas? Maybe even Syllanar?  Oh wait, that’s right it was…”

“Shut your mouth woman!” the Inquisitor shouted back.  “The very nature of the conflict and its resolution reeks of duplicity.”

“Duplicity?  There were countless witnesses.  It is a surprise that your god hasn’t been laughed out of the celestial spheres after that loss.”

Wait, was this insane bitch actually trying to piss off the violent maniac?

By now the 12 city guardsmen that accompanied her were in the midst of the two parties trying to calm the situation down.  Evelyn and both sides of the conflict knew that the guards were horribly outmatched and could really do nothing against two groups of armed knights and paladins should they decide to fight.  Thanks to the woman’s mocking words, de-escalating the situation was no longer an option, she had to at least try to show power.  “As representative of Verda and in my father’s name I order everyone to stand down.  Any who do not comply will not be welcome in this city.”

The inquisitor scoffed, “When have I ever been welcome here?  I have a job to do and you can't stop me from doing it.” 

“I would recommend holding back your anger a bit longer and this situation will be resolved, Toth.  In a few minutes everything will be clear.  I would also remind you that even though combat magic is not my specialty, I am still a seventh circle sorceress and I am more than prepared to defend myself.”

OK, that did it.  If any of the poor guards stuck in the middle of this mess still had clean trousers, they just soiled them.  They came to the sudden realization that they were stuck between one of the strongest and most violent paladins known and a mage who could probably destroy everything within 100 meters if she wanted. 

She needed a miracle at this point and instead saw Thane walking up the road from lowtown.  She didn’t know if he had any power to diffuse the situation but she had to try.  She ran over to him and forced a smile, “Thane, I don’t suppose you have the ability to stop your companions from turning the streets of my city into a bloody warzone?”

He looked confused at first until he saw the three armed groups staring each other down. “I’m sorry they’re causing trouble Ev, I’ll see what I can do.”  He jogged up to the sorceress and put a hand on her shoulder trying to calm her down.  She just gave a confident smile and told him to stand back.  Evelyn couldn’t hear what was said at first, until she caught up.  While he seemed to calm down one side of the conflict his presence had the opposite effect on the other.

“That's the one sir,” said one of Toth’s men.

“You, you are the one that killed my apprentice.”

“Dueled your apprentice,” the Sorceress corrected, “and it was your apprentice that set the terms of the duel to be to the death.”

“Pathos does not recognize the results of a duel with a Sorscare, a fateless heretic.  Hand him and the young girl over now.  The remaining three will be given the option to come with us willingly and live out the rest of their lives under supervision.”

“There will be no executions and no prisoners taken today.” Evelyn grit her teeth as a third group entered.  Another group of Reolve knights led by a paladin, thankfully not another inquisitor.  He had the wings of an elite, and looked like one of those blonde pretty boy types.  “You were right, Gailwyn, my father was very interested in the events that happened a few days ago.  He pulled every string he could to set things right,”  The man paused and glared at Thane, “for reasons he wouldn’t disclose.”

“Lawrence, what are you doing here?” asked Toth.

“I’m here to deliver these to you, Toth.  One royal notice and one notice from a hierarch of Forstas.  Both telling you to drop this pursuit and go home.”  Toth snatched the scrolls from the hands of the other paladin.  The blonde man turned to Evelyn and bowed.  “I apologise for the trouble we have brought into your city.

Toth glared at the scrolls in his hands with a disgusted look on his face, “You are a disgrace to your wings Lawrence.  If the kingdom wants to protect Sorscare then perhaps the entire kingdom is corrupt. This isn’t over.”  Outnumbered and with orders from both the kingdom and the church to back down, Toth turned on his heels and retreated, followed by both his own men and the Kingdom Knights.

Evelyn and the guards breathed a sigh of relief and she addressed the ones that stayed behind.  “So what was that about?  People come running from justice thinking they can somehow hide in the free cities to avoid capture, so seeing inquisitors or kingdom enforcers isn’t that rare here.  However, this is the first time the groups have clashed.”

The sorceress replied, “As you saw and heard, my men were found to be quite innocent but the hard headed inquisitor did not accept the verdict and was attempting to enact his own justice.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some more business to attend to.”

She seemed overly happy with the result, Evelyn guessed that the two of them had some sort of history that the Sorceress didn’t want to share.  The group tried to leave, but she thought she might be able to get some information out of one of them.  She grabbed Thane by the shoulder, gripping it tightly.

“You brought a lot of trouble with you, didn’t you?”

Thane nervously replied, “I’m sorry.”

“Come with me, I need a drink and you’re buying.”

“But it’s noon.”

“Good, then you can buy me lunch too, while you tell me everything.”

----------------------------

-”Greedy”-

 

The one who called himself George Santos climbed into the carriage that awaited him outside the manor and gave a smile at the two women who were waiting for him inside.  One was a rather intriguing woman who was a priestess to Callista, the scion of death and undeath.  The other was a noblewoman who was responsible for the death of the real Viscount Santos.  He was reluctant to admit it, but the noblewoman was exceedingly attractive and arousing...for a mortal.   He nodded to each,  “Lady Varlane, Acolyte, I trust we are ready to leave.”

Lady Varlane sighed and leaned back, “Not yet, Greedy.  There is one more thing we need to pick up before we leave.  The carriage lurched forward and they began to travel down the roads.

“‘Greedy’?  Could you stop calling me that, my proper name is Grax’lithal-”

“Too long,” the noble girl interrupted, “Do you really expect anyone to refer to you by that multisyllabic monstrosity you call a name?  Greedy is good enough for you.  Now tell me, did you accomplish everything?”

He regained his composure and put on his best fake smile, “Of course my dear, a casual analysis of the papers left behind as well as the fact that ‘Viscount Santos’ was caught writing incriminating letters should be more than enough to weaken the houses.  I wouldn’t be surprised if Verda expelled them and banned them from entry.  You know, you could at least call me Graxis, mortals seem to find that much easier to pronounce.”

“Greedy is more fitting though.”

“Didn’t you ever learn to respect your elders, I am nearly two decades your senior.”

“Oh, and how old is that compared to other dragons?  I know how it works and I’ve seen your disappointing size when you wear your scales.  As a dragon, you are just a moody teenager.”

He growled, he had urges to both kill this woman and ravage her to see how disappointed in his size she actually would be.  He wasn’t sure which urge would win out in the end, but for now he had to keep their relationship stable.  Once their agreement was at an end, and he had what he wanted, then he would decide what to do with her.

His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the carriage door and when it opened a cloaked man peered through and handed the noblewoman a blade wrapped in a red cloth.  She pulled it out and looked at it.  It was badly damaged and didn’t look valuable at all.  “Are you sure about this?”

“Of course,” the cloaked figure replied, “That sword was once wielded by Alexander.  If you give it to her as a gift she will give you anything you want in return.”

She put the sword away, “Thank you, if this is as valuable to her as you say, then it should get me into her good graces.”

“Of course,” the man replied, “what is family for?”