NOVEL NEXT Chapter Fifty-Six: Perspective Shift
Captain Xiltuli Nimthan, Umbra elf.
The prickling rays of dawn broke through the dark, rain-filled clouds above to land upon Xiltuli’s sensitive skin. Immediately, an irritating pain bloomed. Hastily, he pulled his hood further down to shield from the hateful rays. How the other races tolerated it, he did not know. Oh, how he missed the Rovalsir Dominion and its cities of darkened streets. Far too long, he’d been from home in a foreign land.
Red eyes lingered on the blood-stained fortress of goblinkind across the open ground of fetid mire and boggy waters.
The Red Scorpions had the rights of first blood; it was their task to cut the eyes of the fort to allow those better suited to carnage to take the forefront. Sticking the first knife was a beloved pastime of the Umbra people; they practically grouted the cobblestones of home with blood instead of mortar. Murder wasn’t illegal in the Dominion nor slavery, but even so the matriarchs had ways of staying atop the rivers of blood.
It’d been the main reason he’d left; he was sick of being below even their dogs.
Nizana shuffled at his side. The assassin didn’t need to speak a word, her impatience clear in that small allowance of movement. Xiltuli supposed he’d brooded long enough. With a nod he signaled them to prepare to cross.
The hooded, encompassing cloaks they’d worn till now slipped free down slim forms and were swiftly bundled away into small bags of holding that held just enough room for their gear. Divested of concealment the sunlight prickled exposed sensitive purple and lilac skin. Six sharp and androgynous bodies stood clad in a dark second skin; a wetsuit crafted from the slick hides of a true terror of the chained coast: the Killerwal.
One Killerwal could annihilate a fleet of hunter-ships. Taking one down could cost hundreds, maybe even thousands, of lives. A price eagerly paid by the Dominion as properly treated and crafted hides of the beast granted immeasurable benefits to the wearer; a near invulnerability to anything the ocean could throw at them. Neither temperature nor pressure would faze them with the suit on.
The marine special forces of the Dominion’s navy held exclusive rights to the highly sought-after wetsuits, making them exceptionally hard to obtain. As former members of said navy, the Red Scorpions ‘borrowed’ six before departing. Even with all the favors Xiltuil pulled in, it was a close thing. He bet the navy matriarch was still spitting mad.
Making sure everything was secure, Xiltuil tugged tightly on the rigging around his shoulders and checked the belts across his chest. Blackened metal throwing knives, designed not to gleam in the light, adorned his sides along the rig while longer fighting knives lashed to thighs, ready to be used. Around everyone’s waists was a belt laden with pouches of poisons and their antidotes.
Just as the irritation of the clouded sun got too much, they pull on masks to match the wetsuits. Tinted glass lenses shielded sensitive eyes from the glare of sunlight while enchantments allowed them to breathe freely, drawing from an internal reservoir of air rather than the befouled mire.
Xiltuil looked about his team and got a series of silent assertions of readiness back.
Six shadows slipped into the murky mire and disappeared from all sight. The waters were clouded and disgusting, and grew even more so when they crested into the befouled moat. However, the wetsuits protected them from feeling any of it besides a general disgust.
It took hardly any time at all for the assassins to cross unseen, not that they had much opposition; the Redcaps on watch were resentful of their posting and hardly paid attention, preferring to laze in rest. Silently they reappeared against the base of the tree.
Nary a sound of alarm greeted them.
Xiltuil hadn’t expected the goblins to notice an elite squad of Umbra ex-marines on approach, but it paid to be careful; sometimes all it took was an unfortunate glance. It was a rule of his to treat all foes as more competent than they appeared—a rule that’d saved him and his squad on more than one occasion.
Seeing no reaction from the watchers, Xiltuil nodded to his team and gestured up. Slowly they exited the moat, the tainted waters sliding free of the slick surface off their attire. Knives quietly lodged into bark like climbing picks as the assassins ascended, all the while still unnoticed by the watchers above.
Xiltuil stalled below the lip of a crudely made platform of creaking, rotten wood and fraying ropes. Listening intently, he heard the telltale thud of heavy boots as the bored watcher shuffled in place. Slowly, Xiltuil raised himself up to peek over the lip.
No uglier creature ever did he see. Teeth like broken knives jutted out from a toothy smile beneath a long, crooked green nose. Bat-like ears, cut and carved, twitched at every little sound, but its beady, red eyes lacked any sort of alertness; they stared dully out over the mire. Atop all its warty green skin and a bald dome sat a bloody red cap, still dripping blood that the Redcap goblin idly licked.
The tainted-spawn of the Feywild had no notion that its death lingered behind.
As it clutched a long glaive of worn copper in its wicked claws, a hand roughly grasped it by the jaw and wrenched its head back. Before the goblin could even register the grasp, a blade of keen edge slit its throat anew, creating a new crimson grin. The goblin thrashed to no avail in the firm grip till it stilled. An extra coat of blood lacquered the wood below.
Calmly and silently, Xiltuil lay the corpse to the ground before signaling the rest to rise. One by one, they climbed the boughs in silence, heading off towards their own targets in the sprawling maze of cluttered buildings.
Over the course of the next hour, the watcher goblins silently disappeared from their posts; their deaths lost in the endless goblin revelry.
Xiltuil posted himself up out of sight of the goblin encampment, but within sightline of the awaiting adventurer and guard forces. Holding a covered lantern to his chest, he opened and closed it in a prearranged code, letting them know the plan was continuing at pace and that the next phase could begin. The assassin waited a moment as he watched the groups suddenly appear from behind the low hills and silently make their way across the mire towards the bloodstained keep.
With his thirst for spilled blood yet unquenched, he returned to the goblin keep.
Watabe Eme, Felis beastkin.
Eme watched the goblin fortress with bright, dewy eyes, nervously awaiting the lamplight signal. Her sable-colored ears flickered back and forth atop her head of equally dark hair in search of sounds in the pitter patter of rainfall, the raucous sounds of goblin chants, the nervous breathing of adventurers in waiting, and the haunting moans of undead lingering on dawn’s edge.
A shiver rocked her body as a drop of rain slid down her back. It wasn’t just the rain that was making her shudder; nerves that’d plagued her throughout the night had her onyx tail swaying in agitation and her hands gripping tight to her bardic drums. She wasn’t used to this; the fighting, the waiting, the gods awful rain.
Her home was warm and far from here.
On the other side of the empire was the Great Thirst, an inland sea that ran from the Ironspine mountains all the way to the continent’s eastern coast. Within that sea lay a myriad of islands, the largest of which was Nekomini Island, Eme’s homeland. The ancestral home of the Felis beastfolk currently lay within the Echea Empire’s control, something that was a contentious issue with the other Felis nations.
Unlike here, her home was a series of golden sandy beaches and endless plains of grass isolated from the world. Before she’d left/run away, Eme hadn’t even seen another race before. Somehow, against all odds, she’d made the trek across the empire to this far-flung barony and joined up with a gold-rank bardic band.
It was rather shocking; she could barely hold a tune!
While Eme knew songs passed down from her mother and could smack a scant drumbeat, she wasn’t a natural, charismatic bard like the rest of her party. The closest she’d gotten, much to her embarrassment and the teasing of the others, was ‘seducing’ a witch. She used the term seducing rather loosely, as she was far too drunk at the time to proclaim any competence in the act.
Eme looked towards said witch just in front of her; the two teams had convened to assault the fort together. Sensing eyes upon her, Autumn turned to the source and the pair's eyes met. Heat bloomed across Eme’s cheeks as she recalled the shameful cries she’d uttered under the witch’s thrall. Shyly looking away, she missed the likewise dusting of red on the pale girl’s cheeks.
A playful nudge in Eme’s side drew her attention to her fellow bard beside her.
“Making eyes with your lover again?” Delight asked with a smirk.
Eme couldn’t help but blush further.
The demoness was Eme’s best friend and had, pardon the pun, delighted in teasing Eme for the last few days. She was different from Eme—a dancer rather than a drummer.
Usually the demoness wore rather revealing flowing silks and sparkling and jangling golden jewelry to show off her toned body. However, the current climate forced her into a covering of furs and scarves, much to her annoyance. Annoyance she’d been leveling on the poor Felis.
“I mean, really? A witch? You’re far braver than I, all of us, gave you credit for. I’m…proud, yeah, I’m proud of you, Eme.” Delight said as she grinned at the embarrassed Felis.
Eme’s ears flattened to her skull, and her tail whipped in agitation.
“Delighttt!” she whined. “Stop messing with me! I shouldn’t have told you anything.”
Delight chuckled. “Tell us? We could tell from your wobbly walk in the morning!”
“Delight!” Eme hissed.
“Alright, alright. No need to puff up, I’m happy for you. Honest! You’ve passed the unofficial bard’s rite of passage: Seduce someone you really shouldn’t. It brings a tear to the eye.” She mimed wiping a tear away.
Eme huffed as she ignored her friend, preferring to focus on the impending mission. The brief distraction was nice, but it didn’t dispel the prevailing nerves deep inside. While she’d not been with the troupe long, this mission was still far from their typical commissions of playing for feasts or festivals. Their magics were used more for frivolity than combat. Sure, they’d gone on a few monster hunts before, but nothing like this.
There’d been quiet…disagreements amongst the party over the acceptance of the mission, but in the end, they’d acquiesced to Captain Gilralei’s judgment. She only hoped things turned out well.
A lantern light flickered in the distance.
“Alright troupe, we’re on. Follow behind the Dusk wolves and support the front. We can have this mission wrapped up before we know it,” Captain Gilralei said before leading them across the mire.
Ahead of them, the other parties marched quickly and quietly through the boggy terrain, their boots sucking into the mud and peat. The trio of demons that made up the Nemesis Crew led the way. Eme shuddered as they plunged into the foulness of the moat. Even from here, her keen Felis senses smelt the stench amongst the iron of blood and the general rotten sink of the mire.
By the time her group reached said moat, the had demons reached the other side and set about cutting down the goblin-made drawbridge with heavy axes. With a resounding crash, the drawbridge came down to bridge the septic moat, the poor construction splintering and cracking with the impact.
Eme charged across the rotten passageway behind the tall backs of the Dusk Wolves, trying her best to keep up with their long strides. Her heart pounded a wild and powerful beat she tried to match with bardic talents and magic.
The screaming of goblins sounded loud in her twitching, quivering ears as they poured down from the boughs like a tide. Knives of jagged bone and glaives of rusted, corroded metal waved widely in savage glee as the Redcaps took in the foes invading their bloodstained fortress.
Slender Felis hands tapped a rhythm onto a hide drum, hoping and praying things would work out fine.