Rise of the Living Forge - Chapters 537-538

Thane kept his hand on Vireth’s hilt, his eyes narrow. The alleyway was just deep enough that they were out of sight of the crowd. But no matter if anyone could see them or not, the sound of a fight wasn’t exactly that easy to conceal. There wasn’t even a reason to let things get as far as a fight.

Sorry, Vireth.

“Help!” Thane yelled. “We’ve got some people trying to stir trouble!”

The men laughed. None of them looked even slightly concerned.

“That’s not going to work, boy,” the man in front of Thane said. His lips pulled into a cruel sneer. “Did you really think we’d just come waltzing in without some way to deal with problems? Nobody can hear you. Sound isn’t leaving the alley.”

A knot formed in Thane’s stomach. The complete lack of a response from anyone in the crowd made it clear. Someone should have overheard him. It didn’t even have to be the Menagerie. There were more than enough adventurers on the street that would have come running at a call for help.

But not one person had even poked their head into the alley.

Someone’s got a sound-dampening ability or something. That means these guys aren’t just random thugs. The thug said something about me doing just fine. So they’re here specifically for someone from the Menagerie.

Shit.

“You get two options,” the lead thug said. “You can come with us quietly — or we can break your legs and take you that way. Up to you, kid. But I’m personally hoping you go with the latter. A struggle always makes things more fun. It’ll certainly make the trip feel a little more worth it. This was almost too easy.”

Vireth rattled at Thane’s side.

“Let me out, Thane,” Vireth whispered in his ear. “Or are you going to research them to death? Talk them into becoming your friend? I’m sure that’ll work. Why not let them break a few limbs just to make sure they mean business? After all, they could be lovely people at heart. We should find out, right? Wait for them to beat you like a stray dog?”

Vireth—

“Maybe you should bend over and give them a big ‘ole target to aim for,” Vireth continued. “Hell, give me to them. It would be rude not to make sure they weren’t properly armed, right?”

“Time’s up,” the thug said. His grin stretched across his face. “Looks like you chose the second option.”

“Maybe he’s joking,” Vireth said in a sneering tone. “Nobody would ever really want to hurt someone for no reason, right? You—”

“Vireth,” Thane snarled out loud. “Shut your damn mouth.”

The devil’s mental mouth snapped shut.  

  “Oh,” Vireth said, stunned. There was something else in her voice. It almost sounded pleased, but that couldn’t have been right — and Thane didn’t have the time or care to figure out what was going on with the devil.

“Now he’s talking to himself,” one of the other thugs said with a snort. “Let’s make this fast. It’s hardly worth our time.”

 Thane’s teeth clenched. He wrapped his hand around Vireth’s handle and pulled the black blade free from where she rested at his side.

“Finally,” Vireth said, her tone still mollified. She sounded a little happier than Thane would have expected for having just gotten scolded. “Let me guess. I can’t hurt any of these louts? You don’t want blood on your hands? That’ll make it tougher, but—”

“Kill them,” Thane said. “All but one.”

Vireth fell silent. The devil didn’t even manage to muster up a response to Thane. She just went completely silent, as if someone had stolen the air right from her lungs.

The lead thug let out a burst of laughter. He drew a heavy club from his side and smirked. “Praying that someone kills us? Not exactly a kind god you follow, but I’ve heard worse.”

He brought his club whistling down toward Thane.

Vireth shuddered. Her blade snapped to the side, knocking the club away from its path and sending it smashing into the ground a foot away from Thane.

Black strands exploded out from her hilt. They wound down Thane’s arm and spread across his chest in an undulating metallic film. Worm-like ripples passed within the dark material as it conformed to his body, wrapping around his neck and crawling up across his face, covering both his nose and mouth.  

Thane didn’t even have a chance to cry out in surprise before the black metal poured into his mouth and nose, suffocating him. He staggered, clawing at his neck.

Vireth! What are you doing!?

Her only response was distant laughter. The black substance wrapped nearly half of his body, covering his entire right side and swallowing all but his left eye and a small portion of his face around it.

“What the shit?” the lead thug asked, taking a step back as he raised his club. “What is that?”

Thane’s lungs burned. He hadn’t had a chance to breathe in before Vireth had enveloped him. He drew in a sharp breath despite himself — only to find out that he could breathe just as easily as normal.

“Take him out!” the other thug yelled, lunging forward and drawing a short sword free from his side in a flash. He drove it toward Thane’s stomach.

Thane found his body twisting against his will. Vireth pirouetted his body right by the blow, letting the blade pass inches past him, and drove his shoulder into the thug’s chest. There was a loud crunch.  The man staggered back with a surprised wheeze. His back hit the wall, anger spreading across his features.

Anger twisted the thug’s face. He pushed himself forward — and a faint snik cut through the air. The thug jerked to a stop.  

Then his eyes flicked down.

Vireth’s blade protruded from his heart.

Disbelief splashed across his features. His mouth opened. But, before he could speak, Vireth tore herself free from his chest. The sword sank into Thane’s palm, vanishing into the membrane wrapping half his body. Long, jagged claws formed on Thane’s right hand.

Vireth thrust his hand forward, driving it right into the man’s neck. The claws cut through his skin so easily that there might as well have been nothing there. Then she tore them free.

Blood exploded out from the man’s neck like a broken fountain. It sprayed across the alleyway as he crumpled to the ground, eyes going glassy as a coughing wheeze slipped from his throat.

Vireth’s laughter bubbled out from Thane’s lips. But it wasn’t just hers. Her voice overlaid with Thane’s in an odd, cruel duet.

“That hits the spot,” the devil said in a shuddering whisper. “It’s been so long since I’ve tasted blood. Gods, I’ve missed this. It makes all the waiting worth it. Witness the strength of your blade, Thane. See the moon turn red once more. The Crimson Night has returned.”

“Brinn! No!” the first thug screamed, horror and fury exploding across his features. “You bastard! Screw the job! Kill him!”

He lunged.

Vireth thrust Thane’s hand forward. A river of black liquid coursed out from his palm. It slammed into the thug and drove him into the wall with enough force to shatter the brick behind him. Then, in an instant, it hardened into the shape of a jagged hand. The devil yanked the man back before them.

Before he could try to escape Vireth’s grip, she drove him down into the ground feet-first. Two loud cracks split the alleyway as both of his legs shattered. The man screamed, but he didn’t even have a chance to finish before Vireth whipped him into the wall head-first.

His skull exploded like an overripe watermelon. Vicera splattered across the stone. Vireth dropped his body, the river of dark liquid flowing back to twist back into the shell covering half of Thane’s body.

The last of the thugs went pale. He took a step back, then spun and sprinted in the opposite direction.

Vireth’s laughter grew louder.

Then Thane lurched forward. His stomach lurched up into his throat. He’d never moved this fast in his life. The alleyway shifted around him as he suddenly found himself standing directly in front of the fleeing man, Vireth’s delighted cackling still pouring out from his mouth.

The man stumbled. He nearly tripped over his own feet in his haste to turn and run in the other direction.

Vireth thrust Thane’s hand forward. Strands of black liquid burst free, wrapping around the man’s legs and yanking them out from under him. He screamed as she dragged him into the air, his sword spinning from his grip and clattering to the ground beneath him.

That’s the last one, Vireth. I need him alive.

“Let me go!” the thug screamed. “I’m sorry! We didn’t—”

Black liquid rushed down his legs, winding down his chest and wrapping around his throat. Whatever else he’d been hoping to say ended in a terrified, choking sputter as the dark material poured into his mouth.

Then Vireth dropped him on his head.

The man landed with a painful-sounding thud. His body flopped over, falling still on the blood-splattered ground of the alleyway.

“He’s not dead,” Vireth said before Thane could say anything. “Just unconscious.”

And then there was silence one more, broken only by the drip of blood and splattered chunks of what had once been a man dripping from the walls of the alley.

The darkness covering Thane pulled away. It slithered back down his arm to re-form into a plain black sword clenched in his white-knuckled grip. Thane’s heart still pounded in his chest like a runaway horse.

He stared at the carnage surrounding him. Then he swallowed. Vireth had completely slaughtered three men in the span of seconds — and she definitely hadn’t been going anywhere near the extents of her strength.

A second passed. Then two.

“Are you just going to stand there?” Vireth asked. She wasn’t laughing anymore. Her voice actually sounded nervous, as if she realized she’d taken things a step too far a little too late. “Say something. Don’t just stare. They were trying to kill you. I protected you.”

Protected… is a strong word.

“I… it’s been a long time,” Vireth said. “I got carried away. They weren’t strong enough. I — I don’t have to fight like that every time. I can be more restrained. Don’t stop using me.”

  Thane stared at the bodies littering the ground for a second longer. Then his eyes narrowed.

Next time, you better be. That was disgusting. You got blood everywhere. We’re going to have to spend some time studying just what you can do.

“You… aren’t mad?” Vireth asked cautiously.

Thane crouched beside the now-headless corpse and rifled through the dead man’s pockets.

I asked you to kill them, Vireth. What kind of idiot would I be if I got mad at you for doing what I asked? I knew damn well what I was saying. I’m not that sheltered. They were going to try to kidnap me.

Thane’s search came up empty. The man didn’t have anything in his pockets. Whoever had sent them didn’t want to be tied back to the job. His lips pressed together in displeasure.

“That’s… true. Of course,” Vireth said. “It would be foolish. You just didn’t strike me as—”

The type to not care about this?

The corners of Thane’s lips twitched. It wasn’t quite a smile. He wasn’t sure he could pull off a smile when the remains of two corpses were splattered across the stone around him.

  “Yes,” Vireth said. “You’re surprisingly calm about this. Have you ever even seen a body before?”

Do you think that all research is comfortable? The purpose of discovery is to delve where others haven’t delved before. I’ve dissected bodies. Monsters. Animals. Humans. All the same, really — though I was never the one that killed them myself.   

Thane moved to the second man and started to search him. He could still feel the adrenaline pounding in his veins. It was taking everything he had not to jitter on the spot.

“You can research things like that?” Vireth asked. “You?”

Don’t sound so surprised. You’d be surprised what you can learn from a body. That doesn’t mean I enjoy killing people.

“Who would have thought?” Vireth’s voice turned to a purr. “My wielder enjoys desecrating the dead. I knew I sensed something in you. We’ll make a monster of you yet, my wielder.”

I do not like desecrating the dead. Don’t take my words out of context.

Vireth just laughed.

Thane sighed. He wiped the blood on his hands off on the dead man’s clothes, then rose to his feet. The second man didn’t have anything either. It looked like they were going to have to get information the old fashioned way.

Rodrick was going to want to see this.

Chapter 538

Thane was having a little trouble figuring out how he was meant to transport an unconscious body. Dragging the man straight through the street wasn’t going to work. Too many people would notice. And, worse some of them would poke their noses into the alleyway to find the slaughtered remains of the man’s companions. The last thing he wanted to do was damage the Menagerie’s reputation with some manner of scandal.

And he knew a fair bit about those. They tended to be the most popular topic at just about every party his family had ever thrown. There was nothing that spread faster. There were ways to control that, of course, but the best course of action tended to be avoiding the problem in the first place.

Do I just go grab Rodrick and leave everyone here for now? But if the guy wakes up and runs away, we won’t have any way to figure out what happened or why they were here.

A shadow appeared at the end of the alley while Thane was still lost deep within his ponderings. His eyes snapped up and he took a step back, a rush of adrenaline injecting itself directly into his veins.

Crap! What do I—

The shadow stepped into view. Thane’s excuses died on his lips as the figure stepped into the dim light.

“Here?” Esmerelda asked, crossing her arms in front of her chest and looking down her crooked nose at Thane. “You decided to let that hussy out here? Are you whacked in the head, boy?”

“They attacked me!” Thane excliamed, though he kept his voice to a whisper to avoid drawing any undue attention. “If she didn’t help me, I think I would have gotten kidnapped! I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

Vireth rattled at his side. It was hard to say if the devil was displaying her indignance or voicing her agreement with him.

“They attacked you? Not other way around?” Esmerelda tilted her head to the side. Then her eyes narrowed. The old woman’s gaze flicked down to the unconscious man laying by her feet. She reached down and grabbed him by the back of his shirt, effortlessly flinging him into her potion bag.

The man should have gone down a few feet at most. The bag was already rather full, after all. But he didn’t even slow. He disappeared into the bag’s depths silently, vanishing as if he’d never been in the alley in the first place.

Esmerelda reached back into her bag. She dug around within it for a few seconds before pulling free a glass vial full of a pale, shimmering liquid that looked like it had the stars themselves suspended within its translucent depths.

“Off with you,” Esmerelda said, noticing Thane staring and making a shooing motion. “To the Devil’s Den. Tell the others what happened. We can’t tolerate people sneaking into our territory. I’ll handle the situation here before anyone notices.”

“How?” Thane asked. “I’m covered in…”

He looked down at himself. There wasn’t so much as a single speck of blood on his skin. It was completely untouched. Despite the brutal carnage that Vireth had just wrought with his body, his clothes were barely even ruffled.

“In what?” Esmerelda asked.

Thane shook his head. “Never mind. Thank you.”

Esmerelda grunted. “Just get going, brat. The longer you take, the more chance someone gets curious and I have an even bigger mess to clean up.”

Thane didn’t question her any further. He hurried toward the exit of the alley, only daring to cast one last glance back at Esmerelda. She’d popped the top of the vial off and was pouring the pale liquid over the dead men.

Then Thane was at the end of the alley. He fixed his gaze ahead and set his pace to make sure he didn’t draw any undue attention before joining the crowd. Thane moved with the flow of the people churning around him, quickly making his way past the line and to the entrance of the Devil’s Den.

Anna had set up at her healing table a short ways to the side. She was completely surrounded by people waiting to be seen — far too busy to notice him.

“You okay, Thane?” Monica asked from where she stood guard over the line waiting to enter the Den. “You look a little pale.”

“Yeah,” Thane replied with a hurried nod. “Don’t worry about it. Thanks.”

Monica gave him a one-shouldered shrug as he slipped inside.

It felt a bit bad blowing her question off, but there wasn’t really much he could say in the view of the crowd. That would draw too much attention. The best thing he could do was find Lillia as quickly as possible so she could alert the rest of the Menagerie.

Thane wove through the tables and made his way up to the kitchen door. He hesitated for a moment at the entrance. The sound of a dozen knives beating against cutting boards mixed with the roar of flame and clang of metal.

It sounded like there was a miniature army cooking up a storm beyond the door. That probably wasn’t too far from the truth. Thane waited for a second longer. Pushing right into Lillia’s kitchen unannounced felt a bit inadvisable.

Maybe I’ll just take it slow. I don’t want to stumble into something I’m not welcome to see.

He hesitantly raised a hand to knock.

The door swung open.

Thane’s heart skipped a beat as he found Lillia staring at him from behind the stove. Every single one of the knives, plates, and other cooking utensils had frozen in place.

After surprise managed to steal one more moment from him, Thane finally took control of himself once more and stepped into the kitchen. The door closed behind him with a thud.

“Something’s wrong,” Lillia said. “What happened?”

“I got attacked,” Thane replied. “Three men. In an alleyway on the street.”

Lillia’s eyes went thin. Anger coiled within them like a snake preparing to snike. A tremor rolled through the frozen utensils suspended all around her. “What? Who?”

“I don’t know yet,” Thane replied. “Vireth killed two of them and knocked the third unconscious. I wasn’t hurt.”

“I could already tell,” Lillia replied, voice taut with anger. “If you had, this conversation would be playing out differently. Where’s the unconscious one?”

“Esmerelda has him,” Thane replied. “She’s cleaning up the mess.”

“Mess?”

“Vireth was a little overenthusiastic.”

Lillia was silent for a moment. Then she gave him a small nod.

“Good. Anyone that tries to go after one of ours, especially on our own damn street, deserves nothing better. Well done, Thane. I’m glad you’re okay. Do you need anything? Water?”

“I’m fine,” Thane said with a shake of his head. “But I don’t think they were here specifically for me. They weren’t with the Blacktongues. One of them said that I would do. Not that I was the target.”

Lillia’s lips thinned. “How’d you even run into them? You said they were in the crowd?”

Thane coughed into his fist. “Uh, I was studying the flow of people moving around in the crowd. Where they were going and such. For optimization. And I noticed they didn’t line up with my observations. So I went to take a look.”

“Alone?” Lillia asked.

Thane winced. “Yeah.”

“Idiot,” Lillia said flatly. “I’m glad you’re okay, but that was a damn stupid thing to do, Thane. We have enemies. You do too. Investigating something like that on your own is a damn dangerous thing to do.”

“I know,” Thane said sheepishly. His eyes flicked to the side for a second. “I just didn’t want to disrupt anyone.”

“When it comes to safety, it’s never disrupting,” Lillia said. She shook her head. “But it doesn’t matter now. What’s done is done. We just need to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Go sit down at a table. I’ll bring you some food and water.”

“What? But—”

“That was not a suggestion,” Lillia said firmly. She affixed him with a sharp gaze. “You just killed two people. First time, isn’t it?”

“Not my first time seeing dead bodies.”

“But it was your first time making them,” Lillia replied. “You need to take a moment. If you bury that shit down, it’s going to eat away at you. Nothing can stop even the greatest of warriors in their tracks like unprocessed emotions. Just relax. Eat. Drink. That’ll give you time to recover while we look into getting some information from your prisoner.”

“I — okay. Thank you.” Thane didn’t bother arguing with Lillia. There were some fights that were never going to be won, and her suggestion was actually sounding rather tempting. He did feel the slightest bit faint now that the adrenaline was starting to trickle out of his system. “Shouldn’t I be there? Since he came for me and all that?”

Lillia’s eyes narrowed. “That depends on how things go with him. Let me and Rodrick deal with it first. Your only job right now is to sit down. And… in the meantime, we’re going to get some answers.”