The Howl of Wolves
Port City of Ardaza, Heartlands
Final Act
"Strife in the age of wolves."
An Isotope & Khan production.
The last vestiges of daylight had already begun to fade, the fingers of Kammeth's light becoming an aura of orange blood red in the gaps among the clouds above. It was late evening, too early for the light of Azueral's Eye to be visible but late enough that already the street lamps were being lit for the upcoming night. Having spent the day looking through old records and searching up all that could be found out about the warehouse address they had learned of the previous day Jahard was feeling unusually tired.
Aleena could see that much though her brother hid his fatigue well. Ever since they had arrived in this cesspool of a city, it seemed he had bent every waking moment to unraveling the mystery of this Shades death. She knew her brother to be the sort of man to tackle any problem or obstacle with his every effort. Yet, even so, it seemed he had gone out of his way more than was usual to seek the answers that plagued this case. She could only guess at why that was, but she did not give it much thought. Aleena was simply glad to finally have a mission to fulfill after nearly two moons of inactivity in Thulthar.
At this moment both her and Jahard waited in an intersection of pathways off the main street just a single building away from the pier dock they wanted. Leaning against a rather large crate Aleena busied herself with sharpening one of her daggers to pass the time. Meanwhile, Jahard had his bow free from its usual sheath and was testing the string. Neither knew what awaited them at the warehouse, for all they knew it was full of ordinary innocent dock workers. Or at worse was the turf of a typical street gang.
Yet, if this had been the place a Shade had visited shortly before meeting his end, it was worth taking every precaution. Annoyed with her current task, Aleena switched to tossing one of her knives into the air and catching it with practiced ease.
Jahard glanced up at his sister for a moment before returning his attention back to his bowstringing, "have patience sister, she will be here any moment I'm sure."
"Right, though I don't see why we don't just go ahead without her. She'll get in the way more likely than not."
He had heard these complaints before, and in truth, he was getting tired of them, he sighed and said, "It's like I've told you w-"
Aleena raised her hand at that moment calling for silence as she cocked her head to one side. Turning the corner a figure appeared, at that moment a blur of motion flashed before the figures face ending with a loud 'thunk' as something struck wood. A short throwing dagger appeared shaking violently after sinking into the hard wood of a crate stacked near the corners edge just within inches from Lilika's head.
Lilka jerked back as the dagger impacted the wood, hands raised to her face to stop splinters from flying into her eyes. After a moment of confusion, she sheepishly waved to the two Justicars and made her way, rather cautiously, towards them. Once she was near enough to be heard, she spoke uncertainly, “Justicars, I uh, I should have called out before I surprised you. My apologies.”
"Ops," Aleena's announced in a neutral voice.
Jahard sighed once he saw that their visitor was none other than their guide. "Moon's silver light Aleena, you have to learn a better form of hello," He rose to his feet from his sitting position atop an overturned barrel, "sorry about that, Aleena can be rather... short strung."
Aleena made a face at him and stalked forward to pry her dagger free. "In my defense, she could have been anyone; this isn't exactly the nicest of neighborhoods."
"In any case..." Jarhard began. "Is everything in place?"
Lilika directed a concerned glance to Aleena as she removed the dagger, her eyes lingering on the female Justicar for a moment before she managed to return her attention to Jahard. Taking a breath to regain her composure, she almost sounded confident when she answered, “As to the matter at hand, I've made all the necessary arrangements. We’ve surrounded the warehouse with some forty men I was able to gather. Nilos is with them as well, and I've instructed them to wait out of sight; at least until they receive my signal. I have little doubt this will go smoothly. At least, smoothly from here on.”
Jahard nodded, "right, we'll move in first and see what we're dealing with. We've done a few passes and saw a few guards positioned about the warehouse. The owner was marked under the name Basimus Sesentanus. But no record of him exists in any official documents that I have found."
"In other words," Aleena grunted and pulled her knife free before adding. "A half ass alias by all accounts. And I'd wager they have something more valuable to hide than fresh grain given all the swords hired on."
"We shall soon see for ourselves," he looked to Lilika. "We can handle a quick peek on our own. Unless you are still of a mind to follow."
With a nod, Lilika spoke, more confident now, “I am, though if you’re concerned I might be a hindrance don’t hesitate to say so.”
"Oh trust me," Aleena said as she started walking ahead of them, "you'll be the first to know."
Jahard only shrugged and followed on after his sister, the group making their way through a crisscrossing maze of alleyways and backway paths. Having scooped the warehouse for some time, the Justicars had discovered one way into the warehouse that was out of sight from the main street. An apparently abandoned building sat flanking their objective. Much of the structure was worn down, but the rear dockyard was aligned with the adjacent warehouses. It was a simple case of scaling over a worn down embankment into the over saturated backyard of the warehouse they wanted.
The grounds rear of the warehouse were filled with containers and wooden boxes. Aleena considered this to be fortuitous for them, as the crates offered ample places to hide on their approach to the rear entrance of the building. Upon reaching the door, the trio stopped and considered their options. The door was an old reddish metal gate, which showed signs of significant rust, to the point a keen eye could spot several red flour beetles skittering across the surface of the portal.
Jahard tested the chains on the gates lock and furrowed his brow. "Would seem they dislike unexpected guest."
"I would think that painfully obvious brother," Aleena said drily. "I don't suppose you could take an ax to those chains."
"Not without alerting any and everyone inside to our intent, if we did that we may as well allowed the guards to barge in."
“We won’t be needing an ax Justicar.” Lilka grinned at Aleena and took a step forward to place her hand on the chain. She whispered an all but inaudible phrase and gripped the nearest link, which seemed to whine and groan as it frosted over. In mere seconds the air felt colder, and with a ‘ping’ the chain broke where Lilka’s hand had gripped it, the ice on its surface lingering after the magic had gone.
"Well done," Jahard voiced, seemingly impressed.
"Looks like she has her uses after all," Aleena said with a shrug.
Jahard gripped the bar attached to the iron gate and gingerly pulled the portal open. The door made a small moaning screech as it was pried open. The door opened up into a dark passage into the building. It was a small square room, with walls cut off from the center of the warehouse. From the look of it, it must have served as a backroom storage department. However, at that moment the room seemed to be mostly empty, save a few wooden lids and scattered tools such as a crowbar leaning against a wall.
Jahard led the way inside, unhooking one of his axes just in case. Lilka followed with Aleena bringing up the rear. Jahard walked to the far side of the room and looked through an indoor window that gave a look further into the warehouse. The glass was filthy, forcing him to clean it of some dust and grime to be able to see anything through it. The other side, of course, remained covered in dust, but what he was able to see only confirmed his suspicions.
"This place is empty," he said in a high whisper, his voice deep enough that it sounded almost as loud as most people's speaking voices.
"Could they have been tipped off?" Aleena voiced.
"No..." he said rubbing his dirtied hand against his thigh. "this place looks to have been mostly unused for weeks, maybe months now. Which puts it out of use during the time our shade should have been here..."
“If the warehouse was empty,” mused, “Why would they post a guard? Let alone several?”
Bending down she ran her hand over the dusty floor, just long enough to confirm the direction of the floorboards. With a frown she blew the muck off her fingers and began surveying the floor, eventually coming to a stop. With a few taps of her foot, she called out to the Justicars, “The floorboards are off here, they don’t line up with the others. From the sound of it, there’s something under here.”
Aleena walked over toward Lilika and tapped her feet on the wooden floorboards noting a change of sound over one particular spot. As she knelt to one knee Jahard walked over, his interest peaked.
"What do you think?" He asked.
Aleena unsheathed a dagger and slid the tip of its point across the dusted floor. "I think... as cliche as it might be..." Aleena's blade found a gap as it slipped into an open space. She pushed the discarded lid of a barrel and beneath revealed a latch.
"Huh," she exclaimed.
She pulled the latch opening a cleverly hidden trapdoor and with it a gush of cold, stale air that brought with it the smell of blood and oil. Aleena turned her face and grimaced as it hit her full force.
"Ah, foul, what is that smell?"
"Hard to say, but this may very well be what they- whoever they are- were seeking to keep this hidden. Perhaps the guard's were merely to discourage," Jahard looked down into the dark gloom noting a tattered looking ladder. "I'll head down first,"
Jahard belted his ax and made his way down the trapdoors ladder with slow and cautious movements. The track down took longer than Jahard expected, the decent into the darkness seeming to go on forever as the smell of copper and rot grew stronger. Soon he touched down in a square room with a single lantern atop a barrel. The room was empty and somewhat sparse save for a few pieces of trash here and there.
When Aleena and Lilika came down shortly after, Jahard walked toward the only door of the room placing his ear close to it. Aleena walked up beside him, having drawn one of her stilettos, and gave him a questioning look. He raised a hand with a gesture that Aleena responded to with a nod in understanding.
Bemused by the unspoken communication Lilka quietly waited in ready behind the two, having gleaned enough from the interaction to know there might be danger on the other side. Whatever was behind the door she didn’t like the smell of it, if nothing else. Jahard edged the door open into a narrow passageway that by all accounts looked to have been recently excavated; lanterns periodically left on hooks the halls only source of light. The trio moved down the corridor, the water dripping down from the ceiling with the quiet clatter of their feet the only sounds to they could hear.
Soon the noise of a distant voice cut into the quiet half way down the passage, "the Renegade said tomorrow needs to be when we make our move. Just one more day of pig stink and shit."
"Barolo better have the pitch in place by then. I won't want to be the one to tell the mask we failed."
The three reached the end of the tunnel where bisected into two pathways. To the right seemed to be the origin of the voices, the shadows dancing beneath the wooden door making that guess an easy one. Jahard raised a hand for them to stop short and gestured for them to draw closer.
When they did, he whispered, "we should go back the way we came, call in the guard and flus-"
"And announce our arrival? They could have a dozen holes these rats could fly to, and we'll have nothing. Grab hold of your cock man; I count three breaths, four at most, we can take them by surprise."
Jahard rolled his eyes but thought on it. It was too risky to go in on their own, but his sister did have a point. A troop of guards would offer their quarries a chance to escape before their full weight could be brought to bear. Before he could suggest a plan, Aleena interrupted him, "the voices echo from a passage further back, two ways in from our side. Give me a moment to circle around."
With that, she faded back the way they came, her cloak making it difficult to see her precise movements. Jahard fought the urge to curse under his breath, he trusted in his sister's skill but not in her patience. It looked like they would have to handle the issue themselves. It would hardly be the first time.
He looked to Lilka, "right then.. we'll draw their attention and give Aleena a chance to come up behind them. Ready?"
hushed her voice, “One-moment Justicar, I have something that should make this a bit easier.”
She whispered a spell, the words foreign to the ears of most, and the damp passage began to fill with a fog that thickened by the second. With a nod to Jahard, she steeled herself and prepared for whatever they would encounter. Jahard nodded and stood until he was next to the doorway that led into the room with voices. Raising his voice suddenly to gain their attention he shouted, "this is Justicar Jahard, you are all under arrest by the authority of Mother Night!"
There was the sound of cursing and surprise from within the room, and the panic only increased when the fog began to enter the chamber beyond. The response given was as quick in coming as it was predictable as a quarrel from a crossbow slammed into the wooden doorframe close to Jahard.
"How about that for a response, you shit!"
"They never want to make it easy," Jahard sighed in annoyance.
There came the sound of things being shifted and moved; Jahard took that moment to push through the doorway. The room was a long rectangular chamber with three long tables stretching from one end to the next. Dozens of jars lined the tables with buckets of something positioned along the walls. Jahard ignored these details for the time being despite his curiosity. The closest man was a skinny fellow with dark eyes, a butcher's knife in his right hand. The far side of the room stood the man with the crossbow, who was currently fumbling with pulling back of his weapons string.
Jahard had no time to retrieve his bow, not to mention the fog was growing stronger making that choice of arms unappealing, so reared back his right arm and threw his hand ax in an overhead throw. It sailed forward in a deadly spin before it smacked wetly into the chest of the crossbow wielder. The man grimaced and fell back with a pained shout as he crumpled to the floor. Jahard pulled free his other ax with his left hand, charging toward the closest man with a butcher knife.
The man's eyes widened in surprise, momentarily caught off guard he clumsily pushed forward with a lung aimed at Jarhard's stomach. The Justicar had predicted this, however, and swept his weapon across to parry the knife away so that it nearly missed him. This allowed him to ram his left shoulder into the smaller man physically knocking him back violently so that his back smacked hard against the edge of a table, which consequently caused one of the pots to fall over. Jahard then grabbed the man's collar and headbutted the man violently with such force that it broke the man's nose while Jahard's free right hand twisted the man's hand forcing him to drop his improvised weapon.
Jahard heard a cry of pain from further in the room alerting him to the fact Aleen had made use of their distraction. He kicked the dropped butcher knife away and twisted the arm of the man he was currently holding and forcing him face first onto to the tables face. To his far left, he heard a shouted challenge as another of the occupants of the room charged him with what looked to be a short sword.
At that moment the swirling fog that had engulfed much of the chamber seemed to rapidly gather above as it condensed. The mist formed into solid form as it became a dozen icicles that fell down with deadly force. The thug jerked to a halt as his body suddenly spurted several icicle spears, and with that decisive move, the room was secured. Aleena appeared a moment later from the other side of the room, blood wet on both her blades revealing that she had found no little resistance on her end.
As Aleena neared she shrugged, "that was easy."
The bold move to storm the chamber had been more successful than Jahard could have dared to hope for he had to admit. They had even managed to capture a prisoner. Jahard tightened his grip on the man he'd taken hold of as he felt him struggle.
"I'd not move if I were you," Jahard warned the man.
"Void take you Justicar! Even if you've stopped us here, it's already too late for your empire."
"And what's that's supposed to mean," Aleena said with a snare as she stepped next to Jahard.
"Ha, look around bitch, what do you think we were doing here?"
Jahard looked up and as the fog cleared it was able to fully take in the chamber around them. The overturned jar seemed to be filled with the remains of a dead pig, fat and pitch alike. Pig fat... and pitch...
Jahard could not imagine what uses such things could be put toward...except.
