Two days ago
North of Redrock, a tall shadow strode through the charred ruins of a fallen mansion, bearing a long black case sealed tight with silver clasps.
Past the crumbling walls he walked, sleek black shoes crunching over blackened fragments that might have been ruined furniture, or perhaps human remains. It wasn't as if anyone could tell at this stage, and the figure didn't seem to care, grinding all beneath him to dust as he made his way to the southernmost edge of the wreckage, where tall windows had once provided a charming view of Redrock and its environs. The glass was long gone, now, but the perspective remained.
The figure crouched, setting down his box and clicking open the clasps one by one.
As he pulled open the lid, its contents were revealed: small, black-feathered forms, cold and silent in death. Each one was a work of art, born of intensive practice and meticulous reconstruction. Any magus worth their circuits could cobble together familiars from animal corpses and captured spirits, but here the bodies had been stitched and preserved with such care that, but for their stillness, they were virtually indistinguishable from living crows.
Their creator stood, and spread his arms, and they burst free from their resting place. Flapping, flapping, catching the winds and dispersing in all directions. And in their wake a deep laugh echoed through the ruins, as Kazamyr watched his eyes and ears take flight.
Now
Wars didn't begin with their beginnings.
Histories might speak of grand declarations, of armies marching forth from open gates in gleaming, deadly formation. Were one to ask the tacticians, however, they would say otherwise. For a war to begin you had to have forces raised and gathered, weapons forged and stocked, maps drawn and plans made and chains of command established. War required
purpose, preparation, foundations to be established well before any true commencement of hostilities.
This war was no exception. Different in its means and methods, perhaps, but the core principles remained the same. Which was why Kazamyr had been readying himself from the moment he'd heard of the Grail's existence.
And why, he suspected, the most unprepared Masters would be first to fall.
Crows perched on high vantages and flew overhead, most natural, others not. Those Masters who had seen fit to hide away indoors or conceal their presence altogether would evade their sight for now, yet on the night of the Grail War's formal beginning, some had already revealed themselves.
A girl in the woods, drawing runes that glowed with ethereal light as she conducted her summoning. A light caught by beady eyes concealed amidst the trees, eyes that instantly discerned the presence of magecraft.
Another young woman, sitting on a park bench with a companion. Her uniform stood out like a sore thumb even in a crowd, and already a black-feathered shadow was innocently perched on a lamppost nearby, silently eavesdropping on her conversation.
Any magus so foolish as to visit the church, if they squinted hard, might catch a small lump crouched on the rooftop, watching and waiting for any sign of approach.
Leaning back on the leather seat of a small black car, quietly squirreled away in an open-air lot near the town center, Kazamyr grinned.
"Found them."
He'd taken care to conceal his presence in the city, arriving by bus and taking care to avoid standing out. His registration, such as it was, had been sent to the church a week past in the form of a long and obnoxiously cryptic letter. And his illustrious companion, his weapon in this war of magic and skullduggery, had been summoned early and well out of sight, with the aid of a small shard of ivory supposedly broken from the tusk of an elephant ridden by Hannibal himself.
"Lancer's in the woods, and Assassin's not far from here. Could be easy marks if we take them by surprise, but the others haven't shown their faces yet..."
He turned, smiling blithely at an unseen confidant. "So, what does the master tactician say? Think you could take one down if we give it a shot?"
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