Legacies of Blood

Kitch carried Royce over one shoulder the whole way back to Sophitia’s Tears. The potion allowing them to see spirits wore off around the same time, helping them navigate the crowded streets of Demon’s Village without the extra clutter of spiritual entities. Though Kitch carried a warrant sealed by the landgraf herself, they decided to move quietly through indirect routes to avoid the slowdown that inquisitive guards would present. Every moment they were delayed was an opportunity for Royce to regain her bearings and determine a way to escape again. Even with her hands bound and her mouth gagged, the witch was still dangerous.

They reached Sophitia’s Tears as quickly as possible. The mere act of crossing the threshold of the limestone barrier surrounding the property reduced the power Royce had available to her through her spirit pacts to a fraction of what it was. Still, if they were to bring her to Willowridge, they would need something portable to ensure things stayed that way.

Elaina spotted some light inside through the window and decided Lenuta must have still been awake. She threw the door open for Kitch to quickly move inside, not noticing the sensation at the base of her skull until it was too late.

They were both blindsided as the door closed behind them. Kitch was easily tackled to the ground with how top-heavy she was, and a blade was placed to Elaina’s throat before she was able to reach for her own weapon. Though the kyrsahn struggled with her attacker for a moment, a blade was placed to her throat by a third, arresting her movements in an instant.

“I wouldn’t make any sudden moves,” a familiar voice rumbled from behind the counter. Elaina didn’t dare move her head, but her eyes shifted and strained to make out the tall, powerful form of Karl Steinbach as he came into view. “These guys can be a little twitchier than the men I trained in the Orbonne Company. But it’s to be expected with the short notice I had to get a team together.”

The man holding the blade to Elaina’s throat glared in Steinbach’s direction but proceeded to relieve the swordmage of her weapon before she attempted to use it.

Elaina’s glare hardened as Steinbach moved leisurely through the room. “Where’s Lenuta? What have you done with her?”

“The old vishanti’s fine,” Karl assured her casually as he locked the door and drew the curtains. “She’s tied up in the back. She won’t be harmed unless you give me a reason.”

“Who’s this?” One of the men asked. He wasn’t wearing as much armor as the others, and though he wielded a blade, he didn’t look like he was particularly practiced with it. Elaina could feel a faint magical power radiating from him. Coupled with the fact that she couldn’t make out any other magical implements or tools, she assumed he had to be a sorcerer.

“That’s the witch I mentioned,” he answered gruffly, tilting his head to make eye contact with the bound and gagged Royce. “Looks like they had a bit of a falling out, though.”

“This really isn’t the best time, Steinbach,” Elaina muttered angrily. “Kind of in the middle of something, here.”

“I noticed,” the man replied, gesturing briefly to the vacant taproom. “I’ve had eyes on you for a while now. I was almost certain they’d been made a few times, but you were too distracted by whatever this is.”

Elaina considered putting her Faestep into action to get the drop on the taller man but realized that it wouldn’t do anything to help Kitch, who was still being held at the point of a sword. Even with the advantage of surprise, Steinbach still looked like he’d be able to handle himself. At over six feet tall with a powerful frame an numerous scars lacing his body, he was a proven survivor. He’d somehow fallen the distance from the bridge into Willowridge to the canyon below and not only survived but escaped without leaving evidence as to where he’d gone.

“Looking pretty spry for a dead man,” Elaina remarked, hoping to stall the man long enough to formulate some kind of plan. He wanted revenge for his son and had sought it in the duel, but now, she had no way of knowing if he might just settle for slitting her throat and moving on with his life.

“You’re not sweet-talking your way out of this, Red,” Steinbach warned gruffly, motioning to the sorcerer to get Royce up off the ground. The sorcerer took hold of the ropes behind Royce’s hands behind her back and jerked upward, pulling her to her feet. The blonde stared daggers at him before turning her attention to Steinbach.

“Just making an observation,” Elaina responded dryly. “No need to get so touchy about it.”

“You killed my son!” Steinbach snarled suddenly. “Then you tossed me off a bridge and left me for dead.”

“It was a duel to the death,” Elaina objected incredulously. “One you instigated.”

“We’re going to settle this, you and I,” Steinbach growled, jabbing a finger in her direction.

Elaina motioned vaguely with one hand toward Kitch. “Fine. Let them go, and we can handle it---just the two of us. No reason to keep them around for it.”

Steinbach exchanged glances with the rest of his team before shaking his head. “No, unfortunately, I still need the leverage with the landgraf and the traitors that have flocked to her banner. I don’t let that sort of thing go, Red.”

Elaina frowned as the sorcerer moved between them, stripping them of their weapons, belongings, and packs. She’d carried Royce’s until she had the opportunity to go through it, but she had taken a moment to confirm that the witch still had the scepter. When she found it, she shoved it back to the bottom of the pack. Still, it wouldn’t take much for them to uncover one of the two artifacts they were carrying. Elaina had no idea what other manner of dangerous magic items she had been carrying on her besides.

Royce strained against her bindings, trying desperately to speak through the gag in her mouth. Steinbach motioned for the sorcerer to remove the gag, which caused Elaina to take a half-step forward in immediate protest. The blade bit deeper into her neck, drawing a thin trickle of blood.

“Don’t!” Elaina protested firmly. “She’s gagged for a reason!”

Hesitant glances were exchanged between Steinbach and the men before he drew a dagger from his belt. He approached Royce carefully, leveling the blade with her throat as he pulled the gag free of her mouth. “Make it quick, witch.”

Royce took a deep breath and shook her hair out a little. “I can help you. If you want to get back at Amberdeen and the Orbonne company, I can help you do that.”

“How’s that?” Steinbach asked skeptically.

“I can realmshift you in behind their defenses,” Royce explained, her eyes darting between each of the men. “I know the grounds pretty well at this point. I know the perfect spot.”

Elaina sneered at Royce, disgusted with how readily she threw herself at Steinbach’s feet. There were people inside the walls of Willowridge who would be slain without mercy to sate the man’s insatiable need for vengeance, and it didn’t seem to matter to her as long as she got what she wanted.

“And why would you do that?” Steinbach pressed. Elaina had to give him credit where it was due, he wasn’t readily taken in by the woman offering him precisely what he wanted.

Royce licked her lips, glancing at the blade of the dagger as she considered how to thread the needle of the situation as carefully as she could. “I just want to go home. I don’t give a damn what happens to the landgraf or your revenge, really. I’m just proposing a transactional exchange, nothing more. I get you in, and then I go on my merry way.”

“She has the Scepter of Drak,” Elaina interjected. It wasn’t something the swordmage wanted to divulge, but Steinbach was probably the only other person in the room who might have understood the implications and the severity of the situation. “She stole it from the vault and is trying to run off to Tenebre Dontae with it.”

The former captain of the Orbonne Company looked at Elaina with shock in his eyes. He searched her face for any sign of deception, and when he found none, he let his steely gaze drift back toward the witch. “Now, what could a vishanti possibly want with such a powerful vampire artifact?”

“That’s not really within the scope of the arrangement, is it?” Royce countered shrewdly. “Whatever it’s worth in coin, is it worth more than justice? Is it worth more than your son? What’s the price of betrayal from the Orbonne Company?”

Elaina watched as Steinbach’s determination faltered, and he became introspective. Even without her magic available to her, the witch was still a capable manipulator. The large man stepped around her and picked up her bag to rifle through it. Within moments, he pulled the scepter free of the bag and placed it heavily on the nearby countertop.

“That kind of coin would go a long way,” one of the enforcers noted, but he wasn’t the one with the personal stake in things that Steinbach had. “A lot of extra men. We could take Willowridge anyway and still be rolling in it.”

“If that’s what vexes you, then take the one that Elaina has,” Royce responded breezily. “She carries the Mirror of Oberon, which is nearly as valuable. I have no use for it, so I would still be inclined to lend you my assistance.”

The other enforcer laughed a little at their turn of good fortune. They had stumbled into a situation that, however it played out, was bound to net them a massive payday. “I guess we can have our cake and eat it too, eh?”

The sorcerer pulled the mirror from Elaina’s pack, immediately handing it over to Steinbach. The man slowly turned the mirror over in his hand before setting it down next to the scepter. His fingers drummed on the countertop several times as he stared at the artifacts. Others might have considered taking them both---doubling their payday, but Elaina knew that it wasn’t quite how Steinbach worked. It wasn’t the way his mind worked. He’d sacrificed so much of his ethics over the years, but there were still traces of the honorable man he’d once been deep down.

“Steinbach, she’s trying to play you,” Elaina warned. “She’ll take both of those artifacts and run the first chance she gets.”

“What do you need with it, Red?” Steinbach asked as he looked up from the artifacts. “What makes your claim to them more legitimate than hers?”

“I requested them as payment from the Landgraf,” Elaina answered honestly. “She said I could have the mirror, but she wanted to hold onto the scepter. We agreed, not knowing that Royce had already stolen both. I’m going to give the mirror to my sister---we might be able to reverse her transformation into a vampire.”

Steinbach stared at her silently before pointing at her slowly. His eyes drifted between each of his men. “See, that... that I believe.”

Royce frowned, straining against the ropes that bound her. The larger man’s critical gaze settled on her, causing her to abandon her struggle immediately. “You, I don’t believe. Do you know why?”

“Because I’m a witch?” Royce sneered.

Steinbach took hold of the ropes and pulled her closer. “I don’t give a shit if you’re a witch. What I do care about, is when someone tries to pull one over on me. Red hasn’t bothered to beg or bargain for herself. She knows what’s coming. However, you can’t seem to keep your trap shut, and you’re so eager to betray the last person you served the moment you think it can benefit you.”

He continued to drag Royce across the room by the ropes, pushing chairs out of the way as he neared the fire burning low in the hearth. He calmly placed the dagger back in its sheath as they passed between the tables and chairs of the taproom. “See, when you tussle with someone with the intent to kill, there are things about that person that are laid bare. Aspects of them that others never see in their lifetimes become plain in their last moments. Red very nearly suffered hers at my hand. She’s clever, but I wouldn’t say deceitful, not like you. She’s consistent. The value of the artifacts means nothing to her.”

Choking up on his grip, Steinbach lowered the witch closer to the fire. Elaina’s heart skipped a beat as she realized what it was the man was about to do to her. Despite everything that had happened between them, Elaina had no desire to see her burned alive. “But if you want to make this about you being a witch, I’d be happy to oblige you and do with you what ought to be done with witches.”

“Steinbach!” Elaina cried suddenly. “You can’t do this! Please!”

Steinbach held Royce mere inches from the flames of the fire, glancing back at Elaina before leaning down to growl into the witch’s ear. “And because when presented with the opportunity to have me dispose of you, she’s begging for your life. Do you see what I mean?”

In a sudden show of strength, Steinbach hurled Royce with one hand away from the hearth and onto the nearest table. His eyes darted back toward Elaina for a moment before returning to the counter where he retrieved the artifacts. He stuffed both back into Elaina’s pack and discarded Royce’s.

“Boss?” the sorcerer asked ambivalently, brushing his slick dark hair out of his face. “What’re you doing?”

“The witch will just stick a knife between our ribs the minute we take our eyes off of her,” the captain rumbled. “But the artifacts are still useful for bargaining with Amberdeen. So’s the witch herself.”

“You’ve got to be joking,” the sorcerer objected, flabbergasted. “Each of them is worth a fortune!”

“That’s not what we’re being paid for,” the enforcer on Elaina argued. “It’s not about the money.”

The other enforcer seemed torn, nodding in the direction of Elaina as he held Kitch steady at the end of his sword. “And what about these two?”

Steinbach motioned to Kitch. “Tie her up and toss her in with the witch. The landgraf will probably want her back, too. But I’ll deal with the swordmage myself.”

“And Lenuta?” Elaina asked, squaring her shoulders. It wasn’t an optimal outcome, but it was better than them being taken in by Royce’s lies so she could escape again.

“She’ll be released before we leave,” Steinbach responded directly, giving Elaina no reason to question his honesty on the matter. “I’ve got no reason to hold her. I just didn’t want her warning you.”

Steinbach stuffed the gag back into Royce’s mouth before handing her off to the sorcerer as the other enforcer bound Kitch’s hands. “Stick them in the back until we’re ready to go.”

Once they had disappeared into the back, Steinbach motioned for the other enforcer to step away from Elaina. He did as he was instructed, sheathing his weapon at his side but not lowering his guard any further.

“So what now?” Elaina asked bitterly. “Are we fighting, or are you going to skip the formalities and just have me get down on my knees? I won’t beg, you know.”

“I know,” he rumbled, reaching down to the dagger he’d brandished at Royce earlier. To his and Elaina’s surprise, it was gone.

“What the---?” Steinbach had just enough time to turn his head toward the back before the explosion ripped through the establishment from the lab in the back. Elaina, Steinbach, and his enforcer were hurled across the room as colorful fire filled the room, peppering everything with sharp, wooden shrapnel.

Elaina’s head swam with the impact her skull had made with the door behind her. Beside her the enforcer held his neck, desperately trying to stanch the flow of blood pouring from a wound in his neck. The long piece of broken wood that had caused it still protruded from the wound. In his panic, he pulled the piece free, causing the flow of hot blood to accelerate.

Across the room, Elaina saw Steinbach getting to his hands and knees despite the number of pieces protruding from his back, making him look like a porcupine with ragged wooden quills. He drew his sword sluggishly out of reflex without even knowing what he would do with it.

“D-don’t move,” Elaina stammered toward the man, even as she tried to rip cloth free from her tunic to stuff into the enforcer’s wound. Steinbach paid her no mind as he dragged himself to his feet, stumbling around clumsily like a man who’d had too much to drink.

“Karl!” She shouted a little more firmly, causing her head to throb with pain. “Stop, or you’re going to make it worse.”

His eyes drifted toward her wearily as he struggled to process what she’d said. He slumped against the broken front wall of the taproom before sliding back to the floor strewn with broken glass. As Elaina struggled with the hands of the panicking enforcer, she could already see the light going out in his eyes. In the back, she heard some more shouting briefly before a secondary, smaller explosion erupted. It wasn’t large enough to throw much around in the front of the building, but in the back, it did considerable damage.

Only as the man faded did Elaina take note of the blood soaking her hands. Her gaze moved further up her arms, examining the wounds she’d suffered in the initial blast. The enforcer had taken the brunt of the blast for her due to where he’d been standing, but there were still bits of shrapnel that had slipped past him and into her. It hadn’t been his intention to protect her. He’d just been in the way.

Nothing was fatal, but it was impossible to shut the pain out once she became aware of it. Crawling over to Steinbach, Elaina began examining the unusual wounds. She wasn’t a healer by any stretch, but she knew he was in particularly bad shape. “You’re losing a lot of blood. We have to get your armor off so I can try to patch you up.”

Steinbach stared at her before shaking his head. “No. Leave it on.”

“I’m trying to help you,” Elaina insisted in a shaky voice.

The wounded captain reached for a pouch on his belt with a quivering hand. She opened the pouch for him and retrieved a small, unbroken vial of white fluid. “What is this?”

“Slide it in here,” he muttered, gesturing toward a small gap in the chestplate under his arm. “Then crush it inside.”

Elaina’s brows furrowed in confusion, but she did as the man instructed. She slid the vial into the small gap as carefully as she could. Once she was sure it was in place, she pushed hard against the breastplate to ensure it crushed the vial inside. She heard a small crunch before a white foam began to rapidly expand inside, forcing her to stumble back a little. Steinbach gritted his teeth against the pain as the foam reached maximum expansion and began to harden.

“That should hold me for a little while,” Steinbach said weakly. “Until I get a healer, anyway.”

Royce emerged slowly from the back room. Though she looked singed and bloody, she was in much better condition than Elaina would have guessed. Her cold stare fell upon the two, sending chills down Elaina’s spine even amid the rapidly spreading flames. “I wouldn’t count on it, captain.”

“W-what did you do?” Elaina said as she leaned against the wall, using it to assist her in getting back on her feet. Though quite damaged, the wood was still sturdy enough to hold her weight.

“Lifted this pompous windbag’s dagger and cut myself free. Because they tossed the alchemist in the back, I knew anything she had brewing in the back had to have gone unattended for a while. It didn’t take much to set the whole thing off in a chain reaction, but the sloppy sorcerer made it especially easy. So, it looks like I did you a favor,” Royce said, glancing between the dead enforcer and the grievously injured Steinbach.

Royce stepped over the scorched rubble of the front counter, her tattered and burned clothes barely clinging to her body. She leaned down and plucked the undamaged scepter from the burned scraps of wood. If Elaina hadn’t known better, she wouldn’t have been able to tell that the item had been caught in an alchemical explosion. Royce dusted it off absently, her attention returning to Elaina as the swordmage finally managed to stand on her own two feet again. “You’re welcome, I guess.”