Wraith's Lament, chapter 4: Chapter 1

“Ves.”

‘Yes, Vita?’

“You picked a bad time to go for a stroll on the waterfront.”

‘I think I see that now.’

The silver-furred feravo and her chiro watched as a flock of corrupted stryx tore up the harbour, spraying glowing red spittle everywhere. Dockfolk were running around screaming, feathers flew like rain (if rain could go up and sideways), and Vita was pretty sure she saw a random stack of crates catch fire at one point. Still not the worst thing they’d ever seen in the Oneiros district, though.

‘Should we help?’

“Nah. Something tells me a main character’s going to pop in and save the day. Any minute now.”

A few seconds later, a woman on a casua charged in, their uniforms bearing the white and red blazon of the urban cohorts. Both of them were also yelling like maniacs, for some reason.

‘Wow!’ Vesper squeaked. ‘You’re good.’

“I’m just written that way, Ves.”

*

“I swEAR to Day!” Decima cursed, swinging a pair of bolas above her head before loosing them at an unlucky corrupted corva. “All I want is one tall glass of passum before they throw me back in the fray. Is that too much to ask?”

Prendergast crouched down and leapt into the air, knocking a red-eyed runner out cold with a solid kick to the noggin. ‘I haven’t had a full meal in two days.’

“Oh, stop whining.”

A shadow zipped above their heads, and the two looked up just in time to see one of those Noktus tyto warriors make a fly-by and toss a weighted net onto a particularly ornery cara. Wait, that wasn’t a cara-- it was their rhakos!

Mayhem (an excellent name, if Decima did say so herself) tipped its head back and let out an unearthly scream. It thrashed its head about, and the horns on its head tore the cords to shreds. Decima reached into her saddlebag. Daius! All out of bolas.

Of course, the corrupted ringleader didn’t waste a moment. Without so much as a crouch to build momentum, it waited for the tyto to make another pass, leapt up into the air, and body-slammed the two right out of the sky. The tyto went careening away, and his rider hit the pier and rolled, her armour clanking and cracking against the wooden boards.

All signs pointed to Mayhem being smarter and tougher than the other rhakos they’d tussled with before. Possibly a former pack leader of some kind? They couldn’t afford to be careless, not this close to the city and its many squishy civilians.

The tyto warrior was still staggering to her feet as Mayhem advanced on her. Decima looked around for literally any other backup, but the nearest chiro-riding vigiles were all distracted by the half dozen other corrupted stryx still tearing up the harbour.

“Daius take the reins…”

With a quick tap of her blade, she spurred Prendergast into a full-on sprint, his talons thundering against the wooden pier as he lowered his casque. Mayhem whipped around, but not quickly enough. Casua slammed rhakos with a solid crack that rattled up the reins and through Decima’s skeleton, and the latter went flying through the air and into the water. The resulting wave crashed over them, rippled up the harbour and smashed against the surge barrier. Then, just as quickly as it’d come, silence fell once more. Was that it? Had things ever been that easy?

The tyto pulled her cracked mask off her face. With her fur plastered to her skin, she looked like a very wet, very angry cat in chitin armour. “I had it under control.”

“You’re welcome.”

The elf spat into the water, flipped her spear to raise its crooked base skyward, and whistled. Her mount glided over her head, and she hooked the saddle horn and pulled herself up onto his back, all without the stryx even slowing down.

“Day,” Decima muttered to Prendergast. “They’re so cool.”

They almost made the Legio Sol look like bumbling idiots in comparison. Not that it was a particularly difficult task. Now then, back to the task at hand.

“Okay. Where is it? Where’s the body?”

Rule number one when dealing with an enemy: If you don’t see the body in front of you, they’re not actually dead. The harbour looked still, but the water was too choked up with oil, rubbish, and corrupted spittle to check beneath the surface. Curse you, pollution!

“Stay back!” Decima shouted, as a gaggle of journos poured down the steps and onto the wharf. The last thing they needed right now was a civvy getting grabbed by an underwater rhakos.

“Ma’am! What was that horned beast from earlier?”

“Will it be back? Is it a threat to the city?”

“Could I get a quote for the Sol Pettifog?”

“Here’s your headline,” Decima fired back. “‘Local tabloid hack gets arrested for obstructing an investigation.’”

While his rider was antagonising the newshounds, Prendergast scanned the waterline for any signs of Mayhem. No ripples from a potential swimmer, but he did see a trail parting the surface, heading straight for… oh! That sewer pipe sticking out of the wharf!

‘Look! It must’ve gone in there!’

Decima turned, and so did the half dozen reporters.

“Ooooh, yep. No way.”

“You’ve got it handled, don’t you, officer?”

“Swing by the Pettifog if you get the time!”

“Give it up, Marcus, that rag’s a sinking ship.”

“Why all the hesitation all of a sudden?” Decima asked.

“Didn’t you know? That pipe leads to the Undersol.”

Stryx mafia territory. Because of course it did.

As the reporters slowly shuffled off, Decima noticed a vaguely-familiar elf sitting with her orange-furred chiro on a nearby bench. By vaguely-familiar, she meant ‘had busted her for possession of slab three times and counting’. For some unfathomable reason, a mysterious envelope would always come in to pay her fine (plus a little gratuity) before she ever had to face any real justice.

“Hey, you!” she said, marching right up to her. “Aren’t you Old Clubtail’s sugar cub?”

“Sugar cub!” Vita huffed. “Just because she gave me the highest level membership to her speakeasy for free, and calls me ‘darling’ all the time, and sent me that sonnet last week…ooooh.”

“Point is, you’ve got connections in Sol’s dark underbelly. And we need you to get us into that underbelly, fast.”

“Sure thing, but I’m telling you now, they’ll never let one of your kind get past the first grate.”

“What, an urban cohort?”

“Nokt, no. A human. The Cawleones despise humans.”

Cawleone… now that was a name Decima knew well, mostly from the stacks of warrants out for their arrest back at headquarters.

“Fine. Prends, you go into the Undersol with the nice elf and her bat, okay? And just in case anything goes wrong, Mama’s gonna go rustle up an unconstitutional search warrant.”