I

Old Ahasker was seldom a pretty sight after the fall of night, nor did it do wonders for the ears of the listener, with cries and shouts of anguish reverberating against the ancient brickwork and mud buildings, sometimes every hour, sometimes more regularly. This was not surprising to those residing within, or at least familiar with, this section of Ahskra. What else would one expect from the neighborhood that has housed the Free Gate since time immemorial? Why else would Old Ahasker be sequestered from the rest of the city behind mile-high walls, with its only open border being that of the fell Dersha Bog, a fetid swampland filled with all manner of bloodthirsty beasts, whether of human stock or not?

It was only common sense for the Sveni, the seventy-seven families who through providence or ambition have come to rule most gates and districts within Ahskra, to continue the age-old practice of keeping Old Ahasker walled off from the rest of the city, with passage out requiring a pass. Passage in, of course, was free to all, for few who entered through the Free Gate and came unto the Planet Skrira ever returned to Ahskra.

Certainly, many are the tales of brave adventurers and capable merchants who went to that anarchic planet and came back rich, powerful, or both—yet for every story of success, there surely are a hundred thousand souls who would never have their names spoken again in the taverns and tea-houses of the City of Worlds. As any a young bravo strolling the streets with feather in cap and leopard fur over shoulder could tell you, many of those unfortunate souls met not their ends on the open waters or in the fetid jungles of Skrira, but rather in the maze-like streets, the dank dens and bargain bordellos of Old Ahasker itself.

One such man stumbled out of a bar, drunk past all reckoning and blissfully unaware of his impending doom. His right hand still clutched a bottle of spirits(half-full) and with this treasure he zig-zagged his way across the narrow alley, arms swinging, drink spilling, looking very much like a disoriented skier in slow motion. A fair-haired and pale-skinned man, which was rather uncommon for the denizens of Old Ahasker(being mostly of Skrirati stock, and with only the boatless barbarians of the far south of that planet being so palely hued, most of them were far darker).

Indeed, this man had been through the Free Gate but twice, many years ago when he had fought as a merc in the War of Purple Leaves. His pay was long since spent, and now he was just another vagrant seeking a brief slice of paradise in one of the most uncaring quarters of Ahskra. Pausing for a nice long gulp, the man did not notice a shadow flitting over the weather-beaten tiles and rotting reeds that served as roofs for the souls living along the alley; one of hundreds of unnamed alleys that twisted their way like veins in lungs through Old Ahasker.

“And once I... I seen the tall tall places, aye!” the stumbler began to sing, taking another decent sip of what gut-wrenching booze still remained in the bottle. “And up and up we go, up and and up we went! Sword’s on the shoulder fair... Sword shouldered, smiling fair... Fuck...” Losing the refrain, the man ground to a halt. One suspicious eye stared into the now empty bottle, while his left hand struggled with the leather strap that kept his breeches on.

Just as he began to piss, he flung the bottle away from him, shouting aloud when the satisfying sound of glass shattering against brick pierced his ears. Still swaying, still pissing, the man began searching the few pockets he had to his name, searching for the tin coin or synth disk which he knew he would not find. Still, if ever a drunkard has one thing in their favor, it is the ability to hope even in the face of the starkest of adverse realities. Naturally, reality soon reasserted itself and it became clear in the man’s mind that he had no coin whatsoever to his name, and worse, no drink.

Well, he figured as he tied his breeches around his hips once more, time to head back and see who’s gonna share some of the good stuff. And so the man turned back to the bar, and to his death. There was no sound, not at first, nor did he see anything—no, he grunted as he felt something pierce through his stomach, and over that spike of utter torment he felt as the blood spurted over his back where whatever had entered him had gored an exit wound. And then, just like the feeling one gets when jumping from a swing in mid-flight, stomach churning, brain feeling as if it floats in jelly, the thing that had pierced him began to suck, to absorb his very flesh, which he felt liquefying within him, moment by moment. The man would have screamed, he would have begged and howled and moaned for mercy, and indeed he began to do so when a sudden shadow fell over him. Something pierced into his lungs, into his left leg, then, once more into his torso.

As his sight dimmed with pain, as his brain tried to work past the torment of having its body pierced by what felt like iron spikes the thickness of a man’s forearm, of having his flesh liquefied and absorbed, the man at last came to see the true form of his hunter, of his doom. And this time, despite the pain, despite everything, he screamed. The sound came out wet and slurping as blood gurgled from his mouth, yet he screamed and screamed, the liquid frothing down his chin, his eyes stretched wide and white.

And then he screamed no more, for nothing but a sack of skin and bones slumped to the ground after the four metallic spikes slid out of it. Once more a ripple of shadows, and the hunter was gone. All was silent in the alley, all still, with only the occasional cry of someone being robbed, ravaged or slain piercing Old Ahasker’s damp night air.