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Author: Mordin
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Chapter 6.
Departure
Time seemed insubstantial, passing quickly with out making an indelible impression on Mordin’s psyche. He inhabited a daze of guilt and worry, spending most of his time moping about his room thinking. The truth was he worried over that nights events, and the more he thought about it, the more apprehensive he became. The whole thing smelled bad, like a clever trap.
His pessimistic moodiness appeared to encourage Lel’s mothering, that and rumours filtering in from Stonestair. He had been deliberately vague about the details of his task, making little of the Necromancers ambush. But the talk in the common room put a lie too everything he had made little of. Crumbling walls, a shattered gate and a servant’s petrified tavern account had put things in too mythical proportions.
By the time these whispers reached the Borderman the tale had been embellished with every telling. Common belief had him stalking the manor in a cloak of black swan feathers, shrouded in shadow and tearing out throats willy-nilly like some fiend from the abyss on a rampage of vengeful ire. Apparently an eye witness saw him dodge and bat aside bolts of magery with ease, throwing hundreds of knives in a duel of epic proportions with an as yet unnamed Necromancer. Idiocy! His expedient escape was now a feat of unbelievable strength and mystery; smashing a gate into splinters and vanishing into the night seemingly.
There were still more unbelievable versions floating around that didn’t even have basis in truth. Some had him plucking living hearts from the owner’s cleaved chests, possessing their souls as he consumed bloody flesh. Pure unmitigated absurdity! Didn’t anyone have common sense any more? Every time he went any where a hush descended if he was recognized and people whispered and pointed! No doubt repeating whatever idiot version of the tale was their favourite. Daft men and women looking to make a name for themselves constantly challenged him or attempted to murder him clumsily.
What puzzled him was that he was connected at all, especially so soon after and so firmly. Yes he was known for using black swan feathers, others did too. He’d gone in direct retaliation for the attempt on his own life, so it was reasonable that he’d gone. But these stories? There was no concrete proof to connect him, it was all hearsay. The problem was that every one just “Knew” it was him. It was incredibly infuriating.
Mordin scratched irritably at some tender knew skin on his forearm, dead skin flaking off as he worried it. Bolts of deadening energy that the Necromancer pelted at him had passed too close for comfort. Killing skin and rotting everything they had come close too, the clothing he had worn was full of decomposing wholes.
He looked up meeting Lel’s worried eyes as she sat comfortably on his bed legs crossed, dressed in a dark green summer dress of light silk. He leaned back with a sigh stretching his legs slouching in his comfortable arm chair. He had come to a decision.
“I have to leave,” he said casually, warily watching her. “Soon.” Mordin added, Interrupting Lel before she could say anything. “The city is no longer safe for me…For now.”
Lel just nodded and stood with an, “I’ll tell father,” Over her shoulder as she left the room, almost as if she had been waiting for him to say it. Odd he thought, but then again she was no dunce and his sudden notoriety was a rotten business.
If rumours persisted of his fame certain parties might take an interest in his doings. Many guilds might be put out with his apparent lethal infamy, making it their business to debunk him, proving their own supremacy with his obligatory demise. Then there was good old D’Lere; If he didn’t have Mordin murdered he’d put a leash around his neck and call him servant. Neither alternative was appealing.
Leaving was sensible, it allowed him to keep his freebooter status and his life. Mordin enjoyed both a great deal. He’d come back after the fall when things had chilled sufficiently and people had some thing else to gossip about. There was only one problem; How to get out of the city unobserved? It was problem he’d have to ponder. Standing he moved about the room and began to pack absently thinking.
Night crept over Freeport muting the summer’s oppressive heat, the cities occupants stirred from a lethargic doze and the city came alive. Mordin moved along busy streets as people went about their merry making, the night’s revels just starting. He was reasonable satisfied with the solution he had come up with Dag’s help.
He wore a disguise of sorts. He was dressed approximating a southern Barbarian; Head swathed in a wrap that obscured his features in folds of black cloth, and a gnomes cleaver eye glasses smoked to obscure his softly glowing eyes. He wore black robe like garments with out a cloak, baggy trousers bloused in into his worn knee high leather boots. A long sash wrapped his middle over a baggy tunic with a an exotic blade tucked in its folds, securing it to his waist.
The blade was a sight, it was called a “horse killer” with good reason. The blade's length was incredible; stood on end its three hand hilt reached just over his armpit. The swords blade was a wide single edged lethal curve spanning four feet with a sharpened conclave on its backside tip that allowed stabbing along with its natural slash. Like a massive scimitar with a gentler arc, enclosed in a sturdy snake skin sheath. Sashed as it was the enormous hilt stuck out and he had to walk holding the heavy blade with his left hand just under the large steel crossgard to keep it in place.
The overall effect was menacing and exotic. People gawked, pointed and kept wide because he held the sword as if ever ready to unsheathe the massive blade, but they did not whisper “Blackfeather” in awed tones. No one recognized him behind this exotic mode, he was just another stranger among many about his own business.
Mordin came to the outer gate that would let him leave the city; it was guarded by a motley crew of mixed troops serving D’Lere and the city. He approached casually glasses glinting in the torch light, walking towards the open exit.
“Hey you!” Came a guttural bawl from the gate house. Mordin stopped swearing silently, turning to see a watch officer stumble out fallowed by the rest of his crew. Two guards manning the gate just ahead of him turned with mild interest at the goings on as the officer approached him fallowed by his lackeys.
The officer was an ugly human; tall with lank brown hair, and a bulbous nose red with drink. The mans bleary eyes regarded Mordin’s foreign dress with a sneer. “What the hell’r you?” The officer spat. He wavered slightly obviously drunk.
Mordin sighed inwardly, thinking trouble. “I am Morjin Alhuin from the peoples of the sand sea.” he over pronounced everything as if unsure of the language, in sibilant tones. His eye warily darted behind the glasses too the man’s lackeys. One was a large Ogre with a vacant look, the other was a lizard man, its scaly hide gleaming dully in the nights sultry heat.
“Sand arse,” The officer guffawed loudly at his own weak witticism. “Sand arse raghead,” he chuckled inebriated. An odd hissing came from the lizard that unnerved Mordin before he realised it was laughing. The Ogre just looked blankly at him as Mordin stood stoic under their feeble insults.
“Show me your face…sand head,” The officer slurred, “No one can leave with their face covered says Ol’D’Lere.” He snickered, “Lets see your ugly puss, eh?”
“No,” Mordin replies laconically, thinking furiously. Could he run? No, he wouldn’t get far he decides looking at the Lizards cocked crossbow casually held pointing at him. What then?
“No?” the ugly officer parrots surprised, a look of consternation crossing his face. “You don’t have a choice! Is the rules. Take it off rag ass!”
“No.” Mordin replies truculently as he plans desperate, feeling the tension rise. The officer swears snarling and steps forward snatching at his face wrap. Mordin sways back slashing upwards at the grasping hand with a throwing knife he had stealthily palmed into his right hand at their approach.
The small blade bit deep into the man’s wrist, incising a messy gouge and lacerating an artery. Squealing like a stuck pig with a look of inebriated surprise stealing across his unattractive features, the officer stumbles back clutching the haemorrhaging appendage.
Mordin’s arcing slash carries his arm up over his head almost theatrically, blade glistening bloodily in the torch light. His arm snaps down, wrist flicking imperceptibly and the knife flashes covering the distance to its target in less time then it takes to perceive his movements. It appears almost magically in the reptile’s eye with grotesque thud skewering its brain, sending the owner crashing to the cobbles limp.
One dead and another dying in less the two breaths, Gods teeth I am good! Mordin absently gloats as he spins desperately sidestepping away from the Ogre’s massive hammer swipe. Dragging the ridiculously outsized sword from the scabbard at his side, Mordin continues too spin and dodge the Ogre’s potent hammer swings. With a broad two handed grasp on the swords three hand hilt, Mordin finishes a spinning dodge swinging “Horse Killer” much like an axe.
The sword whistles through the air, crooning a deadly song in his unexpectedly proficient hands. Lady luck or possible his own skill was still with him as Mordin roared, powering the massive cutting edge as it sheared through the Ogre’s trunk like leg at the knee; separating the limb from its body. A slight and almost imperceptible shudder along the blade was the only indication it had hit something.
The Ogre toppled in a spray of blood and shattered bone falling heavily, its head striking the cobbles. The sword sang now in a loud hum, its vibrations thrumming through the hilt in a disconcerting unnatural way. Its joyous and terrible song ceased abruptly as Mordin buried its edge in the Ogre’s skull, for a moment leaving the night curiously quiet.
Running steps made Mordin’s cowled head snap up, he regarded the two gate guards warily halt a handful of paces away. Mordin wrenched the blade from his victim’s skull with twist sending the top of its cranium sliding across the cobbles in a gory splatter between the two men. Both were human, one plump and young the other old and grizzled.
The young one shied away from the gruesome skull fragment, turning green. Mordin weighed the odds regarding the salty veteran. They hadn’t called for help, which likely meant their wasn’t any close by. He decided to bluff, it wasn’t likely he could fight both and win as it was. He survived the first fight because he had surprise and good portion of luck on his side, not so now.
Mordin held the blood-spattered steel casually, letting the tip descend a bit so that blood dripped to the ground as it filled the night with an eerily soft musical ring. He spoke affecting a cavalier indolence, “You wish to die also?” He pausing for a reply but they remained mute for the moment and so he continued, “He offered insults and dared touch me, I let him suffer before I’ll take his head.” He indicated the loathsome officer cowering on the ground as he quickly bled to death, clutching his ruined wrist.
“Nnno…” Stuttered the young guard and received a disgusted look from his elder.
“Coward!” Spat the older. “We let him out after this mess and Captain will have our taters for breakfast!” He hefted his spear getting ready and Mordin sighed inwardly.
“But Gorn he just killed three men like he was cleaning his teeth! I bet you its that Blackfeather sod…..” The younger gulped. “You heard the rumours!” he whimpered.
Mordin swore silently in his head. Gods bloody foot! He thought. I went to all this trouble to sneak out and now they’ll just pin this on me anyway! Damn it all! Well the fellows got a point, I am me. “Good guess young fellow.” Mordin said primly taking off his smoked glasses, eyes glowing a luminous blue in dim street against the black cowl he wore. “Now I still need an answer. Too die or not, that was the question?”
Obviously this fearsome repute was worth something after all; the younger guard collapsed on the street landing hard on his bottom, the older Gorn apparently, paled and swallowed what ever retort he had been going to make. Most gratifying! There was something too being notorious he thought.
“Not” said the younger emphatically.
Mordin eyes turned towards Gorn. “Well?” he queried. Gorn licked his lips eyes darting and Mordin new the answer. He threw the knife he’d a retrieved cunningly in the guise of putting his glasses away in a sewn pocket in the tunics front. It blossomed in Gorn’s throat sinking its full length, gouts of blood spewed down his front. He collapsed a moment later and was still, death swooping in mercifully swift.
The lad was weeping and begging as Mordin approached, mucus ran down his face. Mordin absently noticed that boy had soiled himself as he kicked him square in the jaw, knocking the boy out cold. He paused briefly over the plump guard feeling discomforting emotions, before retrieving his knives and cleaning his weapons.
Mordin sheathed the exotic piece of steel tightening his sash, took one last look around and left Freeport for the time being. Walking down the deserted road he felt an odd tightness in his chest, almost painful but mostly a bitter gall. Guilt was a burden he would have to bare for the necessity of his life. He reached absently with his right hand caressing the solid weight at his side, thinking how appropriate. The “Horse killer” had a name; Guilt, a heavy burden, but necessary. Feeling of rightness overwhelmed him drowning his sorrow and filling him with purpose. It was with a light step that he began his trek that took from the cities light to be swallowed by the twilight’s darkness.
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