Ashes of the Past

“There weren’t always dragons in the Valley,” muttered Bralin, draining a large portion of the contents of his mug as he stared contemptuously off to the side of the tavern. “Guess it just goes to show how far Xeralt and his fucking Imperium have managed to spread. Now the whole country is practically overflowing with the bastards.”

“You make it sound like they only emerged around here after the Founding. Truth is, pyromancers have always—”

“Pyromancers,” Bralin chuckled mirthlessly, his eyes now turning to face the woman directly to his left. “Gods above, Luuko, there’s no need to be so damned polite. They may look like the rest of us, but we all know what they are: godsforsaken monsters—slaves to the Imperium—that are biologically incapable of expressing even a shred of basic human decency.”

Luuko rolled her eyes and stifled a sigh.

“Besides,” added Bralin, draining what remained of his ale as his companion merely sipped on hers, “even if there were dragons here before the Founding, I guarantee that they didn’t walk around looking like that.”

Bralin finished his drink and slammed his tankard heavily down atop the counter, motioning vigorously towards the bartender for another round.

“No,” admitted Luuko softly, ignoring his repeated use of the slur and turning her attention towards the corner of the room. “They didn’t.”

A scowl spread across Luuko’s face as she watched two pyromancers harass a barmaid who was handing them another round of drinks, making obscene comments that the young girl nonetheless found a polite way to reply to.

After all, what other choice did she have?

Dressed in gleaming black armor made of a substance that was more of a fashion statement than a pragmatic means of defense, the gaudiness of the pyromancers who fought beneath the banner of Xeralt Scionoe—the self-proclaimed ‘King of Kings,’ and founder of the Continental Imperium—was unmistakable. Moreover, just as their appearance was universally known, so too was their reputation for how they responded to even the slightest of offenses.

As much as Luuko would have liked to say that their reputation was more hyperbole than fact, she knew from personal experience that the inverse was far closer to the truth.

“Black-hearted scum,” grumbled Bralin, taking several large swigs from his recently refilled drink. “So help me gods—”

“Keep your voice down,” seethed Luuko, making a small motion with her hand that (she hoped) was simultaneously subtle yet serious. “Remember why we’re here. Just one night of rest in an actual bed, then it’s another fortnight of travel through the Valley before we reach the Junction. We’re not here to start something. Besides, with the amount you’ve been drinking, you’re in no state to be doing much of anything.”

“Speak for yourself,” countered Bralin, compliantly lowering his voice as he defiantly signaled for another round. “I’m feeling fucking fine right now.”

Luuko scowled once more, but for a whole different reason this time.

She and Bralin had worked well enough together to complete their assignment in Buthuir nearly a week earlier, but whenever they weren’t actively engaged in executing their mission, there had always been an air of tension between them.

Typically, Luuko’s assignments for the Ravens had more to do with shadows and subterfuge, whereas Bralin’s tasks relied more heavily on a shock-and-awe approach. They had each heard of one another by merit of their respective reputations, but prior to being given their most recent assignment, they had never once interacted.

Their mission now complete, the two operatives had made their way back into the city of Villavos (one of the three major Imperial outposts scattered throughout the Valley) earlier that day. In the handful of hours that they had been sitting next to one another in that tavern, more words had passed between them than they had exchanged in the entirety of the last six days.

Up until this moment, their contradictory personalities had been able to exist in a sort of uneasy truce. Now, Luuko was beginning to think that she and her companion weren’t going to be able to make it back to the Junction without coming to blows in the process.

“Maybe you want to lay off a bit, friend,” she said icily, the tone in her voice conveying something far more hostile than a suggestion. “We’re here to pass the time, not get so plastered that you won’t be able to drag your sorry ass out of bed in the morning.”

“Fuck you,” scoffed Bralin, emptying the remainder of his drink down his throat and then motioning for another. “I answer to Yarvo, not some scrawny little bitch who’s got a soft spot for fire-breathers.”

“Alright, enough,” demanded Luuko, slapping her hand firmly atop his wrist to prevent him from lifting his recently refilled mug to his mouth. “At the rate this is headed, you’re going to end up taking a swing at those guys in the corner in a matter of minutes, and then you and I are both going to wind up dead. Get it the fuck together. We’ve got a job to do.”

“Trust me,” retorted Bralin, brushing her hand from his arm and taking large gulp of ale, “this is me keeping it together. Without this shit numbing my nerves right now, I’d already be swinging at them.”

“I don’t get it,” said Luuko, placing her hand atop his tankard and pressing it firmly down atop the counter. “You sat next to me in a shrub three days ago and didn’t so much as twitch when an entire platoon of Imperial soldiers crossed our path. We had an opportunity to ambush a Thorian Diplomat a couple weeks back, and you never even reached for your sword. Gods above, even after watching Roice and Gilthus get decapitated by those High Guard assassins, you weren’t anywhere near this pathetic.”

“Where the fuck do you—”

“You’re not just toying with our lives right now, you’re toying with our mission,” continued Luuko, pressing all of her weight into the mug as to keep it firmly cemented against the countertop. “Do you realize that we actually extracted information from the heart of the fucking Imperium a few days back? We literally did the impossible, and you’re about to throw it all away in some bullshit bar brawl with a couple of sleazy pyromancers! You want to tell Yarvo—or, better yet, Ulrich himself—that’s what happened, then be my guest. For what it’s worth, though, you may want to say goodbye to your family before you do, because I’m not sure you’re walking out of that meeting alive.”

She released her grasp on the cup and pulled away from him once more, the two sitting in silence as they continued to stare one another down.

“That would be a pretty quick farewell,” Bralin muttered in reply, removing his hand from the tankard as his eyes became distant. “All of my family is dead.”

The silence that now hung between them took on a much different tenor, and—despite cowing Bralin into submission mere moments before—Luuko felt herself shifting uncomfortably in her seat.

“Everyone’s got a past,” said Bralin, making no further indication he was going to touch the drink in front of him. “Mine’s pretty simple. One day I was a husband and a father, the next day I wasn’t. Five dragons was all it took for the Imperium to strip me of everything I cared about.

“I get it, you know,” he continued, directing his gaze once more towards the corner of the room. “I know we’ve got a job to do. But every time I see them, I feel like my past is crashing down on me. When that happens, it gets hard to remember how to breath, much less resist the urge to spread their brains out across the pavement.”

“I hear you” muttered Luuko, turning to look at the inebriated soldiers herself. “My reasons are certainly different than yours, but I’ve got no love for pyromancers myself.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Bralin, the alcohol finally seeming to take effect and slurring his speech ever so slightly. “And why’s that?”

Luuko shrugged as she swirled her ale aimlessly about her cup.

“Like you said,” she replied. “Everyone’s got a—”

The door to the tavern swung violently open. All eyes shot upwards as a frantic man surged suddenly into the room, screaming wildly as he ran.

“It’s starting! It’s begun!”

Every single patron rose to their feet and flooded out the door, abandoning their meals and their drinks as they poured into the streets in droves.

“What’s happening,” shouted Luuko over the noise, addressing the bartender as the man hastily removed his apron and tossed it aside.

“Execution Pyre,” the man called out in return, vaulting himself over the countertop and heading into the streets himself. “Just settle up with me afterwards!”

“Shit,” swore Bralin, flying out of his seat and heading out of the tavern along with the crowd. “They’re hosting these damn things this far from the capitol now?”

“Hold up,” cried Luuko, sprinting towards him as a massive swarm of people separated them from one another. “This is a bad idea!”

Bralin was already out of ear shot before the words had left her lips, and Luuko found herself fighting her way frantically through the crowd in a desperate effort to reach her companion.

“Ladies and Gentlemen of the city of Villavos,” boomed a voice in the distance. “Are you ready to see justice delivered here today?”

Those present erupted into applause as Luuko pursued Bralin through the mass of people in her path, sliding in between bodies as her partner continued to force his way towards the front of the crowd.

“We are gathered here today to render divine judgment on those who stand before you,” continued the voice, compelling the crowd into silence. “The courts have found these three individuals guilty of the most heinous of offences. By the authority vested in me through Lord Scionoe, revered King of Kings, I shall administer their sentence with my own hands, granting peace to the families of those they have wronged, and restoring harmony to our land once more!”

The crowd cried out in jubilation as Luuko continued to weave her way through the throng of bodies in her path. Eventually, she managed to catch up to Bralin very near the front of the horde—his eyes locked onto the scene playing out atop the platform that stood in front of them, his body trembling with rage as his hands contorted into fists.

Luuko followed his gaze. A lone pyromancer stood addressing the crowd (the town’s magistrate, at a guess, based on the opulence of his uniform), his hands raised towards the sky as he conjured two orbs of pure, focused fire into the center of his palms. Behind him were three individuals, all bound to posts with their mouths gagged and their eyes blindfolded. The one in the center appeared to struggle to free himself. The other two simply remained where they were, having long since appeared to accept the inevitability of their fate.

“There’s no reason for us to be here,” insisted Luuko, grabbing hold of her companion’s arm and tugging him gently in the opposite direction. “Come on.”

Bralin remained fixed in place, his eyes staring intently at the scene playing out before him.

“People of the Valley,” called the magistrate, turning his back to them as he faced the condemned. "Today, you shall bear witness to the divine protection of the Imperium. Today, I shall ensure your safety by erasing evil from this world, once and for all!”

The pyromancer shot out his arms towards the man on the left. A torrent of fire rushed from his palms and poured over his target, stripping the flesh from his bones as the intensity of the conflagration incinerated the individual as well as the post he was bound to in a matter of seconds.

Luuko’s stomach churned in disgust as the masses cheered in adulation, compelling her to tighten her grasp on Bralin’s wrist—partially to be sure that he remained where he was, partially to prevent herself from rushing onto the stage and strangling the magistrate with her bare hands.

“We should go,” she shouted, leaning close to his ear as to be heard above the crowd’s cries of revelry. “There’s no sense in us watching this.”

The half-dozen ales that Bralin had been drinking steadily since arriving in the tavern had rendered his eyes somewhat bleary, but the intensity behind them indicated that the alcohol had done nothing to impair his focus.

“Handing out judgment over a man’s life as if they were gods,” he muttered, his voice so low that Luuko was only able to hear him on account of how close they were standing. “What gives them the right?”

“Bralin—”

“Fucking animals,” he continued, seeming to ignore her presence completely. “They meet out ‘justice’ on humans as if they were human themselves. They claim the right to shape the trajectory of our lives simply because they can spit fire from their hands. I can’t just stand by and be complicit in their godsforsaken superiority complex. Not anymore.”

“What are—”

Before she could finish her sentence, Luuko doubled over in pain as she felt the wind knocked from her body.

Bralin pulled his fist from her stomach and violently shoved her backwards into the crowd, sending her tumbling down atop the cobblestone. Luuko struggled to disentangle herself from the feet of dozens of onlookers as they trampled the ground around her, ultimately dragging herself up by dragging two of them down. By the time she had scrambled back to her feet, the magistrate had already begun incinerating the woman on the right, and Bralin was nowhere to be found.

“Idiot,” she shouted, shoving her way through the mass of people in front of her and making her way towards the front. “Don’t you do it, you stupid bastard. Don’t you fucking do it!”

“At last,” the pyromancer proclaimed as he turned to face the man in the center. “We reach the worst of you. People of Villavos, let this man’s death set you free!”

As the magistrate rose his hand above his head in preparation for one final incantation, Bralin suddenly scrambled onto stage.

“No,” shouted Luuko, still too far away to do anything to stop him.

By the time the pyromancer realized there was someone behind him, the inebriated Raven had already withdrawn the short axe from his cloak and buried it into the back of his target’s skull.

As soon as the pyromancer fell dead atop the platform, the entire city erupted into pandemonium.

“Luuko,” shouted Bralin, ripping the axe from the man’s head and rushing over towards the surviving victim. “Get up here and help me!”

“Have you lost your fucking mind,” she screamed in reply, finally shoving her way to the front of the crowd that had since descended into lunacy. “We need to get out of here! Right now!”

“Not without him,” called Bralin, using the axe to slice through the man’s restraints, allowing him to use his hands to rip the blindfold from around his eyes. “This can’t all have been for—”

A pyre of fire erupted from the sky above where Bralin was standing, slamming down on top of him and coating every square inch of his skin in flames.

“Holy fuck,” shouted the survivor, recoiling rapidly from the spell as he tore the gag from his mouth. “We need to run!”

Luuko stared speechlessly at Bralin’s conflagrating body. He screamed out in agony as he ran helplessly about the platform, his skin slowly melting away from his body as the flames tore him apart in the most painful way imaginable.

“Don’t just stand there,” cried the man, leaping down from the platform and grabbing hold of Luuko’s arm. “Let’s move!”

The man pulled her into the crowd just as four more pyromancers made their way onto the platform, successfully disappearing into the swarm of panicking civilians mere moments before they were detected.

“This way,” said the survivor, dragging Luuko into a nearby alleyway. “There should be a—shit!”

After all but colliding with two unsuspecting guardsmen, Luuko was jolted forcefully out of her stupor.

The surviving Raven withdrew her sword and immediately slew the first soldier before he ever had the chance to defend himself. Her newfound companion hurled his body towards the one who remained, pinning him to the ground and ripping the helmet from the man’s head.

“Thought you could kill me, asshole,” he jeered, bashing the helmet against the guard’s face over and over again. “Let this be a lesson to all of you fuckers: Arkel. Doesn’t . Die!”

The man punctuated his last statement by slamming the helmet into the guard’s head with each individual word, leaving his victim’s face an indiscernible mass of bruises and blood as the contents of his skull bled out across the pavement.

Luuko watched in horror as the man named Arkel rose from the guard’s body and removed the sword from the dead man’s scabbard, smiling broadly as his victim’s blood streamed freely down his face.

“That was necessary,” he grinned. “Once we rendezvous with the Daybreaker, drinks are on me.”

Before she had the opportunity to ask him what he meant, a dozen additional guardsmen flooded into the alleyway, all of them armed with crossbows.

“Move!”

The soldiers instantly fired a volley of arrows in their direction as the two fugitives darted out of the way—only not quickly enough.

“Fuck,” Luuko cried out in agony, staggering forward and falling heavily onto her knees.

“What happened,” called Arkel, rushing over to her side. “Are you—oh, damn it!”

Luuko followed his line of sight towards her left calf. A crossbow bolt was buried horizontally through her leg, crippling her completely as searing pain lit every nerve in her body on fire.

“I’ve got you,” said Arkel, hoisting her quickly and unceremoniously over his shoulder. “Hold on!”

Luuko’s sword tumbled from her hands as Arkel rounded the corner, enabling them to vanish into the seemingly endless labyrinth of side streets that made up Villavos’s heavily urbanized residential sector. The edges of her vision went black as the pain threatened to incapacitate her completely, and the sounds of the soldiers attempting to pursue them echoed distantly in her ears as Arkel continued to navigate a seemingly indecipherable series of turns throughout the city.

After a matter of minutes, Arkel came to a screeching halt in front of an otherwise nondescript hovel. He raised his sword and slammed the pommel twice against a door built into the side of an otherwise innocuous residence that appeared no different than those around it.

“Congratulations, Edo,” shouted Arkel, “The Daybreaker has come to collect. Let us in, clear out, and consider your debt paid in full.”

The door swung open immediately as a haggard looking man and several other people fled into the street, never so much as glancing in their direction as they dispersed into the surrounding alleyways.

Arkel darted through the doorway and slammed it shut behind them. He then dropped his sword to the ground and walked briskly to the nearest cot off to the side of the room, flinging Luuko down atop the rancid straw mattress as he scrambled to find something in a nearby dresser.

“It’ll take them a minute to figure out where we’ve gone,” said Arkel, grabbing a ragged shirt from the dresser and walking over towards a table in the part of the hovel that seemingly served as their dining room. “We’ve got to do something about your injury.”

Luuko’s pain had begun to subside, but her emotional shock still rendered her effectively mute. Between Bralin’s death, Arkel’s savage murder of a guardsman, and this casual mention of someone called the Daybreaker, her mind was far too fragmented to form a coherent thought.

“I admit, I’ve been hoping to be rescued for the last eight days,” said Arkel, lifting a bottle of some questionable looking spirts from the table and bending down to pick up his sword from off the ground. “To be honest, I thought you all weren’t coming. The guy who cut me free—what was his name?”

“Bralin,” managed Luuko, her response more of a reflex than an indication of her capacity to process his question.

“Brave man,” said Arkel, kneeling down beside her and using the sword to gently cut the arrowhead away from the rest of the arrow. “Neither of you are familiar to me, so you must have joined on after I was captured. For what it’s worth, I’ll see to it that the Daybreaker looks after his people. It’s the least I can do.”

The arrowhead fell limply to the ground, and Arkel dropped the sword down alongside it.

“Don’t scream,” he said, grabbing hold of the bolt near the fletching. “This isn’t going to be fun.”

Luuko nodded as Arkel slid the arrow from her leg then doused the area with the contents of the bottle, sterilizing the wound as her nerves all but burst into flames once more. Luuko grabbed hold of the bedsheet and shoved it forcefully into her mouth, biting down savagely into the bedding as to stifle her screams. Arkel dropped the bottle to the ground immediately afterwards, wrapping the shirt tightly about her leg and tying it off to keep it pressurized.

“We can try and sew it up once we’re out of here,” said Arkel, rising to his feet and offering her his hand. “You’ll have to keep your weight off of it, but you should be able to manage. I’ll support you.”

“How exactly are you planning on getting us out of here,” panted Luuko, the process of cleaning her injury having reignited her ability to think. “If it were just guards, maybe, but pyromancers? The moment they figure out where we’ve gone, there’s no chance we get out of here alive. Not if you’re dragging me along with you, anyways.”

“We'll figure it out. I’m not leaving you behind,” insisted Arkel, grabbing hold of her by the arm. “You risked your life to save me, and your friend lost his. I’m not going back to the Daybreaker alone.”

“We’re not with the Daybreaker,” said Luuko, snatching her arm from his grasp. “You keep saying that like it should mean something to me, but I have no idea who you’re talking about.”

Arkel stared at her blankly.

“Wait…he didn’t send you to save me?”

“Looks that way,” answered Luuko, collapsing back onto the bed after trying to unsuccessfully to stand.

“Then why the fuck did you,” shouted Arkel, flinging his hands into the air. “Gods above, you’re saying that your friend killed a magister for someone he didn’t even know? What’s the point of something like that?!”

“That’s the most sensible thing I’ve heard all day,” she smirked mirthlessly in response.

“Alright, look, I’m sorry about your friend, but I need to get out of here,” said Arkel, swiping the sword from the ground and striding towards the door. “I treated your wound, so we’re square. All the best.”

“Hold on!”

Luuko shot to her feet before collapsing immediately to her knees, wincing in pain as she landed heavily on the ground.

“It’s like you said, friend,” said Arkel, opening the door slightly ajar as he peered out into the alleyway. “Maybe I’ve got a chance, but you definitely don’t. I’m grateful that this Bralin fellow saved me and all, but if you’re not part of the Collective, then you’re not my problem.”

Luuko hesitated for a moment longer.

He was right. There was no way that they were both escaping the city—she would almost certainly slow them down too much. As much as she loathed the idea, there was nothing else for it. One way or another, the mission had to be seen through.

“You and I are not square,” said Luuko, reaching into her coat and withdrawing a letter from within. “Bralin died before we could deliver this, and I’m in no shape to do so. You have to do it instead.”

“Have to,” scoffed Arkel, drawing his head back inside the doorway as he stared at her in disbelief. “I don’t have to do anything!”

“Just a moment ago you were willing to put your life on the line for me when you thought that I worked for this Daybreaker character,” challenged Luuko, waving the letter forcefully in his direction. “You’re clearly a good person. Certainly—”

“Let’s get one thing straight,” snapped Arkel, slamming the door shut behind him and closing the distance between them. “I am not a good person. You don’t end up tied to a post and burnt alive by some fucking dragon for anything less than the things I’ve done. I owe you nothing.”

“But you owe Bralin your life,” insisted Luuko, waving the letter furiously towards him once more. “And don’t you dare tell me that you don’t!”

Arkel ground his teeth together in frustration, but he didn’t dispute her challenge.

“Two weeks north of here is a merchant caravan set up alongside the Junction between the Valley and the Gulf,” said Luuko. “There’s a fur salesman there—one who specializes solely in bear pelts. Tell him that Luuko regrets that she can’t be there in person, but that Buthuir was still a success.”

Arkel regarded her warily.

“Don’t get me wrong. I’m no friend of the Imperium, but this sounds like some Raven shit to me,” said Arkel. “I’m hated enough in the Valley as it is, but if you’re telling me that I’m about to be throwing my lot in with the Usurper—”

“You’re not,” Luuko lied. “You’re just making good on the debt that you owe.”

Arkel slowly extended his hand towards the letter, but the sounds of soldiers in the street seemingly caused him to change his mind.

“Forget it,” he said, stepping over to a nearby window and unlatching the lock. “Like I said, I am not a good person. You wouldn’t put even a sliver of trust in me if you had any idea what I’ve—”

“We all have a past,” shouted Luuko, panic seizing hold of her as she pleaded with him one last time. “I know this better than most. I’m begging you, believe me when I say that it doesn’t matter what you’ve done up until now. It doesn’t have to define you.”

Arkel hesitated, visibly deliberating on what to do. A few more seconds passed as the clamor in the streets grew louder, his body shaking with frustration as he finally relented to her plea.

“Just because it’s on my way,” he snapped, striding towards her and snatching the letter from her hand. “But after I do this, whatever debt I owe your friend is settled. We’re even.”

“Of course,” Luuko sighed with relief. “Just drop it off and we’re—”

The door to the hovel burst open as a dozen soldiers poured through the entrance.

“Get him,” roared the pyromancer at the front of their ranks.

Arkel sprinted towards the window, flinging his body against the unlocked wooden panes and tumbling into the streets. He rolled deftly to his feet and bolted around the nearest corner, disappearing into the intricate web of alleyways around them and putting as much distance between himself and his pursuers as he could.

“Go!”

“But, sir,” protested one of the soldiers, pointing towards Luuko kneeling in their path.

“She’s not going to stop you, idiot,” snapped the pyromancer. “After him, now!”

Four of the guards surged immediately towards the window, but as one began to vault himself through the opening, flames sprang to life along the windowsill. The man shrieked out in pain and withdrew rapidly from the fire, the three soldiers nearby staring at his scorched hand in horror as the flames continued to burn.

Before any of them had fully processed what had just happened, a pillar of fire erupted in front of the doorway as well, effectively sealing them all within the hovel.

“Captain?”

“It’s not me,” shouted the pyromancer, extending his arms and attempting to dispel the flames that were blocking their path. “What the—”

“You’re probably right. Twelve of you and one of me…it’s not likely that I can stop you.”

All eyes turned to Luuko as she continued to kneel motionlessly on the ground.

“Even so,” she said, a malicious smirk making its way to her face as she lifted her hands, both of them coated in flames as she continued to channel the spells that currently barred their escape, “I’m willing to bet that I can slow you down.”