Red Wishes Black Ink

Vitt Secondson-Salvado, Hunter of the 9th Renown, Kingdom of Infinzel, ring shopping

Watts Stonework, Survivor of the 1st Renown, Soldier's Rest, dead man walking

Cortland Finiron, Hammer Master of the 12th Renown, Kingdom of Infinzel, on his way

9 Blossum, 61 AW

The pyramidal city of Infinzel, North Continent

51 days until the next Granting

The jeweler died while trying to lock the gate across the front door of his shop. A gargoyle had rammed into his back, bent the middle-aged man in half, and then taken a chunk off his skull for good measure. His corpse was still on the doorstep and the skies were momentarily clear, so the thief chose that moment to scamper across the street. An athletically built young man, just into his twenties, with dimples that flashed even when he grimaced, as he did when he dragged the jeweler's ring of keys from underneath his body. Vitt wondered if this was a crime of opportunity that had presented itself as the young man fled for shelter of if the thief had braved the onslaught of gargoyles with this particular jewelry store in mind. Something for the hunter to ponder in his boredom.

The thief didn't need the keys for the front door, so he burst inside and went straight for the display cases. He didn't notice Vitt who leaned against the wall next to the door. Vitt had his [Camouflage] active, although the thief moved with such brazen haste that he probably wouldn't have spotted Vitt regardless. The young man fumbled with the keys, trying two in the display case lock before giving up and raising his elbow to bash it through the glass.

"Hello," Vitt said.

The thief yelped and snatched a knife from his pocket, though he was wise enough to lower it once he got a look at Vitt. The champion's silk shirt was torn down the front, bleeding claw marks crisscrossing the whorls of his Ink. Streaks of stone dust turned his black hair prematurely gray. Vitt's short sword had broken two fights ago, so he'd taken up a bejeweled mace he found mounted here in the jeweler's showroom. The weapon felt awkward to Vitt. He had no gods-given mastery with such blunt instruments and he was pretty sure it was meant to be decorative, but it would do for now. Vitt pointed the glittering head of the mace at the thief.

"Don't stop on my account," Vitt said. "Keep trying keys."

The thief blinked. "Seriously?"

Vitt tilted his head down to get a look at the thief's Ink. He had the pyramid. Vitt smiled. That simplified things, should this situation prove too great an inconvenience.

"I don't care what you filch," Vitt said. "But if you break that glass and bring more of those beasts down on us, I'll use you as a shield."

The thief stared at him for a moment, as if contemplating what to do next. Gargoyles in the skies, the districts in ruins, bodies everywhere. It must have seemed like the end of the world to the young man. In times like that, there weren't any rules. So, the thief went back to trying keys in the display case.

"You're bold, aren't you?" Vitt remarked.

"Shouldn't you be out there fighting?" the thief asked in response. "What are you even doing in here?"

"What's it look like? I'm standing guard."

The thief chuckled. "You aren't doing a very good job." His smile faded as another key failed, the metal slipping between his sweaty fingers. "Why does he have so many gods damned keys?"

"The vault's open," Vitt said. "Behind you."

Spinning around, the thief took stock of the steel-plated sliding door with its handle like the wheel on a ship. A hole had been bored into the metal where the locking mechanism had been. The thief ran his finger around the smooth opening, probably trying to determine what sort of tool had been used. He had never seen anything like [Open Weak Point].

"Someone got here first," the thief muttered, but his curiosity still got the better of him. He slid the vault's door open, the metal hissing quietly across freshly oiled grooves. The jeweler had been a fastidious man.

Two spears jabbed out from the vault, prodding at the thief. He stumbled backward, banging into the display case.

"Oh, right," Vitt said. "We agreed upon a knock."

One of the spears was held by a whore from Wanderlust who had been with Vitt since this mess started, the other by a laundress they had picked up along the way. A dozen other women, children, and weaklings that had latched onto Vitt were huddled inside the candlelit vault.

"It's all right, love," Vitt said. "Our friend here hasn't decided if he's staying or going."

The woman from Wanderlust took a moment to size up the thief who tucked his hands behind his back to hide the jeweler's keys. "Safer in here than out there," she told the thief. "But I'll gut you if you try anything stupid." Then, she slid the door partway closed.

"She's a tough one," Vitt said.

The thief turned back to Vitt. "You really are standing guard."

Vitt pointed at the ceiling. "Stone roof on this place. Stone walls. Not like the other shitholes out here with their wood and thatch. Keeps the monsters from coming in except through the front." He nodded toward the door, and the corpse stretched there. "Suppose we owe the paranoid dead man some gratitude. If more of these fools had invested in their dwellings, there wouldn't have been so many killed. Although, I suppose, sound architecture didn't help the jeweler much."

"We aren't allowed to build with stone out here," the thief said.

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"Oh, right. The law," Vitt said. He'd enforced the building codes on the outer districts enough times—mostly on people he found irritating, or those who had run afoul of one of his half-siblings. He wondered who the jeweler had bribed. It hadn't been Vitt. At least, he didn't think so.

The thief returned to trying keys.

"You live in the outer districts but didn't get the broken wall?" Vitt asked.

"Old Guydemion never did shit for me," the thief said.

"What's your name?"

The thief paused for a moment to consider whether or not he should answer. "Ryen Blackwork."

"Charmed," Vitt said. "A proposition for you, Bla–"

The hunter stopped as he noticed movement in the street outside. He held up his mace and Ryen edged back toward the vault door. A gargoyle—or chunks of one—tumbled down the street like a sad little rockslide. Vitt craned his neck in the direction the dismembered beast had come from. He winced at the sight of the man moving methodically south.

"Stay here," Vitt told Ryen.

Although part of Vitt considered letting Watts Stonework pass in peace, his curiosity ultimately won out. The man looked like a walking corpse. Dark blood and caked mud covered the front of him, the side of his neck flapped like fish gills, and his scalp seemed to tilt backward into a gravity at the back of his head. He was a walking corpse, Vitt realized. He'd heard the bouncer had been given some special talent from the gods, but this looked more like a special misery.

"You are a sight, Watts," Vitt said as he stepped out from the storefront.

Watts slowed down upon seeing Vitt, and for a moment something passed through that ruined eye of his, like a furnace heating up. The bouncer adjusted his grip on a dented shovel. "Vitt."

"Gods, what does it feel like?" Vitt asked.

Watts slowed down, though it was clear he didn't intend to stop, or to answer Vitt's question. His voice was scratchy, raw, and whistled through the side of his throat. "I thought you would be helping with the defense."

The hunter frowned, tonguing a tooth in the back of his mouth that had recently come loose. "I can help my father well enough from here."

"Good luck with that," Watts said.

Vitt could've pointed out the lives he had saved so far, the evidence of which was cowering inside, but he didn't need to justify himself to this outsider.

"And where are you headed?" Vitt asked.

"Guydemion's," Watts said. "Need to find my family. Check on the old man."

"Someone will need to put a lid on this," Vitt said. "Find where the gargoyles got loose. Close it up."

Watts pointed his shovel at the jeweler's. "You checking door-to-door?"

Vitt pursed his lips. "When it comes to these gargoyles, I'm more effective with a partner."

Watts still hadn't stopped walking. "I don't have long, Vitt."

"You're worried about me slowing you down," Vitt said flatly.

"You already have."

Vitt sniffed. He considered letting the grubby bouncer go on his way alone, but no, that would be the prideful thing to do. One boat trip north with the logician and suddenly Vitt had started thinking in more practical terms. The two champions could accomplish more—could save more lives—if they stuck together. Perhaps, Vitt reasoned, if he kept the outer districts from being slaughtered, the remaining brothels might see fit to accept his patronage again. Watts might even be inclined to speak up on his behalf.

Everyone could win.

Turning on his heel, Vitt returned to the jewelry store. Immediately, he used his [Hunter's Mark] on Ryen. The young thief shuddered, though he did a fair job of stifling the movement.

"That chill you felt was my mark," Vitt told him. "I'll be able to find you now, wherever you go."

"What? Why?" A necklace dripped between the thief's fingers. He had succeeded in getting the display case open.

"I'm putting you in charge here," Vitt said. "Gargoyles are quite stupid. They can't use doors, only bull through them. You'll be safe in the vault. Hunker down for the night, make for the pyramid in the morning. I want all the people I've saved to survive or I'll have wasted my time. Fail me in this and I'll find you and I'll kill you."

"Now, hold on—" Ryen started.

Vitt held up a finger. "Succeed and you will be a hero. More jewelry for you. Or I could find a cousin for you to marry. Would you like to be a Salvado by marriage, Ryen Blackwork? It's the best way to be one, I assure you."

"I—"

To wait for an answer would imply that the thief had a choice in the arrangement. With his glittering mace in hand, Vitt left the jewelry store and jogged to catch up with Watts.

Cortland ran through the warehouse district, mindful of the sinking sun on his right. A sliver of orange was just barely visible above the ring wall. Once night came, an ugly situation would turn truly hideous. He needed to find the breach before that.

The gargoyles didn't keep to any patterns. They hadn't formed some kind of coherent defense around their new hunting grounds. All they did was kill and destroy, instincts imbued in them decades ago by an Orvesian witch. The beasts wouldn't show him which way to go.

Instead, he followed the bodies.

Cortland chose the streets with the most corpses. Places where the people of the outer districts had been taken by surprise. He ran toward what the dead had been running away from. The streets were clearer now—most people had gone into hiding, or retreated into the pyramidal city if they were lucky.

But some had fought back. Cortland saw gargoyles that had been brought down by ropes and grappling hooks, then smashed. Some brave group had attempted to string barbed chains between buildings. Cortland saw a pair of torn gargoyle wings hanging from one such trap, like bedsheets drying in the sun.

Cortland paused when he saw the horse. He recognized the grand mount, even with its muscles gone lifeless, its cream-colored coat stained and filthy. The horse had been gutted, ripped nearly in half, but it had gone down fighting. Its hooves were cracked and its muscled legs were coated in stone dust.

Three gargoyles still stalked nearby, prowling around a collapsed house like looters searching for a way in. Their wings went back when they sensed Cortland's approach. One of them opened its mouth to shriek.

In response, Cortland tossed one of Carina's discs into their midst. Pleasing as it would feel, he didn't have time to engage every gods damned gargoyle in direct combat. Instead, he spoke the word of power–[Pull]—and watched as the contraption ripped the cores straight from the three gargoyles with a surge of magnetism. The cores burst like glowing bubbles atop the disc while the gargoyles crumbled and toppled.

The wooden beams of the wrecked house the gargoyles had been surrounding began to shift. For a moment, Cortland thought there might be a fourth beast, but then Rivian Stonespirit rolled out from a narrow gap in the rubble.

The woman's antiquated cavalry uniform was ripped and bloodied, although Cortland got the sense that not much of the blood was hers. Rivian still had her sashblades tucked across her body, but both the swords were broken. She dusted herself off and nodded at Cortland.

"Hammer master, I need a new weapon."

Cortland grunted. "Find a sturdy piece of wood."

While Rivian rummaged through the wreckage of the house, Cortland approached one of the broken gargoyles. He hammered down on the back of its neck, breaking the head loose from the body. Then, he reached down and snapped the lower jaw clean, discarding it, leaving only the gargoyle's sharpened beak.

"You are heading in the right direction," Rivian said. "For the hole."

"You saw it?" Cortland asked.

She thrust an arm-sized chunk of a rafter in his direction. "A hundred yards further south. You can see where it exploded out."

"I'm going to cave it in," Cortland said. "Seal it."

"I figured you would come," Rivian replied. "I had some folks with me. We tried to catch the gargoyles coming out. Pull them down with ropes. Got overwhelmed, pushed back, had to run."

While Cortland listened, he took the shaft of wood in one hand and the gargoyle's head in the other, then bonded them using [Forge]. He handed the newly crafted hammer back to Rivian, who made a tentative swing, her arms shaking slightly.

"Good," Rivian said.

"Snap some of that handle off and choke up on it."

Rivian did as he said, took a less tentative swing, and nodded again. "Better." She started down the street. "Come on. I will show you."

Cortland walked alongside the champion of Soldier's Rest. In truth, he was grateful for the company of a champion who didn't say much and, when she did, who spoke only in facts, and who could handle herself in a fight. If only all his fellow champions were so simple.

Up ahead, rock dust hung heavy in the air, smeared across walls like a sandstorm had passed through. This would be the place. He slowed down, checking the skies, and came to a sudden stop.

Perched atop a warehouse was the gargoyle who stood on two legs.