The Conciege
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(THOB) Chapter 135: An Old Woman
🕑 Added 2024-01-18 04:42:32 +0000 UTCClad in his hooded cassock, Sunders and bow securely strapped in place, and his quiver hanging low on his hip, Ezril left the hotel. When he relinquished his room key to the man behind the table at the entrance, the man said nothing, choosing to receive the key in silence. Smart men never asked priests questions. Especially when they were in their cassock.
The night was illuminated by glowing street lamps, and even after accepting three nights were more than enough to have grown accustomed to a bright night, it did nothing to shake away the wrongness he felt as he walked the streets.
Nights were not designed to be bright. It was wrong.
He found the compound easily. Watching it for a while, he realized his previous count required rectification. While two men stood guard at the front gate, another two patrolled its vast length on both sides.
Spotting an opportunity, he ran across the idle road and flattened himself against the compound’s wall. It was the smoothest wall he’d ever had the satisfaction of putting his face against; smooth as paper. The only way a person would climb it was with some rope and some kind of hook. What would Salem do? he wondered.
It was irrelevant. Salem was not here, and Ezril didn’t have a rope, or a hook. But he had the next best thing.
Unsheathing his Sunders, he stabbed it with all his might into the wall. The blades slid into it with a hiss, as if returning to their scabbard.
Good.
He pulled himself up, retrieving them only to drive them into the wall at a higher angle. In this manner, he climbed the length of the wall, leaving a trail of stab marks below him. It was only a matter of time before the guard patrolling this side of the wall saw it and raised some form of alarm. That was if he took his job seriously enough.
Ezril knew he had to hurry. However, he was met with a shocking revelation at the top of the wall. From the gate a curved stone road trailed all the way to the mansion, but on the massive grassy lawn where trees were scattered were street lamps, for each tree stood a lamp shining bright. The night within the compound was almost as lit as the day. He thought of the patrolling guard and frowned, he hadn’t thought the compound would have so much light, considering what he’d seen in the city, it was stupid not to have expected this. He needed to be fast. And speed will kill you¸ the voice in his head informed him.
It was a twenty foot drop to the ground, and though he had learned in the past week that he possessed the strength of a Hallowed, he wasn’t convinced it would be an easy drop. At this height an unHallowed would break bones, or most likely die, but a Hallowed would survive. Certain no one was in sight, he threw his hood over his head, sheathed his Sunders, and dropped.
His knees took the impact, and he knew he was going to feel it come morning. For now, he had graver matters to handle. He ignored the trickle of pain and closed the distance between trees in no more than three steps. The darkest spots in the compound existed beneath the shades of the trees. If they had as much guards as there were trees stationed in the compound, things would’ve gone awry from the moment his feet hit the ground. All they’d have had to do was station each man at each tree.
He crossed the last gap between two threes and a guard perked up at the mild sound he made.
Ezril had long since learned the true step was not invincible. When one moved, one didn’t disappear; it only seemed that way to the inexperienced. For anyone who was watching they’d notice the distortion in the area traversed. For an unHallowed, it was easy to cross the distance leaving them wondering what happened. For a Hallowed, great speed was needed, and Ezril didn’t have that speed. Any Hallowed would see him move through the distance even if it wouldn’t be a clear image.
Unwilling to risk the possibility of the guard being Hallowed, he thought fast. In one swift motion he drew his bow, nocked an arrow, and loosed it at a lantern away from him. To his surprise the globe didn’t just break, it shattered in an almost imperceptible explosion, sparks of orange-red embers flying in all directions, but it was enough to draw the man’s attention from him.
The guards at the entrance to the building didn’t take their duties as seriously as those at the entrance to the compound. One sat back on a long white wooden chair fast asleep, while the other leaned against the wall, watching his surroundings half-heartedly. It seemed they were taking turns, so when Ezril leapt onto the threshold from the side and put an arrow in the side of the watchman’s skull, no noise was made. Then he slit the throat of the sleeper with his hunting knife. The sleeper woke as steel met flesh and only had time to move his hand to his throat while his partner slumped down.
Retrieving a ring of keys from the man he put an arrow in, Ezril tried the door, ignoring the man gurgling blood behind him.
The door clicked open at the third key and he slipped inside quietly. Hunting knife held in his hand, he made his way through the bright house, annoyed at the intensity. If he had known it would be this bright he’d have come during the day, then he wouldn’t have had to deal with the wrongness he felt.
The absence of guards behind the door helped him decide that what he sought would be on the floors above. Finding the stairs, he took them, pausing at the sound of footsteps when he reached a bend in its rise. He hurried back and hid at the ascending wall where it curved. The curvature shielded him from the light as a guard stepped down and headed into one of the few doors in the living room to the left.
Moving swiftly, Ezril scaled the flight of stairs, arriving at another level of the house, and stepped into a hallway the width of four men standing side by side. The floor beneath him was cast with varnished wood, and like every such thing owned by rich people, it didn’t creak under his moving weight.
The walls were covered in green coating, and from them hung paintings of varying tastes. From murals of exquisite artistry to masterpieces so abstract he couldn’t make out what the artist intended… he at least figured they were masterpieces to someone. Why else would they hang them up?
The hallway branched off in two opposing directions. Reaching the junction, he peeked around the corners. They led on a few feet and branched again on both sides. It was a big house. Why couldn’t it have been a tavern like the one they hid people in the underbelly. With a frustrated sigh, he proceeded, weaving his way through the corridors, filling every crack in the guards’ patrol with his presence. By the time he’d opened a few doors, at least the ones unlocked, he’d learned two things: if it had no guard at its entrance, there was no point to it and the building had more than enough men to spare.
An all-out brawl would only serve to kill him. Now he hoped the bodies he left at the entrance and the few he’d dropped in his most recent search wouldn’t be found early.
He slid steel across the throat of a guard who’d stood at the stairs too long. A gasp slipped from the man’s lips muffled by the hand Ezril had over them and he helped the man down gently. There was no surprise in discovering the building had another floor above, and as he urged his way up, he heard conversations. One came a few stairs down and the other from the floor he’d just stepped onto.
“…Don’t know why they even work with him,” one voice was saying. “All he does is negotiate her release. Has he forgotten how dangerous she is? If she goes free we’re dead.”
The man he spoke with simply laughed. At the sound, Ezril realized it was actually a woman. It made no difference.
“He’s trying to manipulate her,” she said. “It’s what he does best. He takes people and uses sweet words to turn them to his side. He’s a snake, that’s what he is. Best if the missus don’t listen to one word he…”
Her companion hushed her hurriedly. “You know she’ll have our heads if she hears you calling her that.” He seemed panicked.
“Don’t worry ‘bout it. You know she’s fast asleep in the basement. Don’t even know why she likes that place, nothing but rat piss and shite in there.”
The voices were ascending and slowly Ezril lost track of their conversation.
The ones on the same level with him shared a humorous laugh but he ignored them.
“Hey, you heard what happened in Varfnot?” the man asked.
“Yeah. Heard ‘twas one priest did it. Rumor is the seminary’s finally out for us.”
“With one priest?” the man scoffed. “Impossible. I’ll bet my bottom coin it’s some rogue priest carrying out some twisted justice. Maybe we gutted his pa or something.”
They laughed and Ezril decided he’d kill them too. He’ll come back after he’s done and kill them.
Taking his attention from them, he hurried up. It was only a matter of time before they rose high enough to find the corpse he’d just orchestrated.
Back against the wall, he spied the corner. Two men walked down the single passage, their backs against him, laughing at some concealed joke. They turned the corner on their right, and he occupied the hallway, trailing it to the end. The hallway turned only in the direction they’d taken. Met with no alternative, he peered around the corner. He counted four men standing at a door built into the wall on the right.
“Hey, what’s…? Fuck! Someone got Tarnu,” a female voice boomed from down the stairs. It wasn’t so loud that it would cause a panic, but he heard it. The pain and anger in the voice was potent and he felt the emotion against his skin. “Sound the alarm,” she yelled.
“I never thought the bastard would come this way,” a man’s voice piped up in response.
Was that panic he had heard? It didn’t matter. It seemed he wasn’t the only one who’d heard it. He heard the hurried footsteps around the corner. Taking four arrows from his quiver, he nocked one and pulled back the bowstring. He took in a sharp breath through his mouth and expelled it in a huff. As prepared as he’d ever be, he recalled the count, Four, then rounded the corner.
Arrows flew, replaced immediately by another. And in a fraction of a breath, four bodies dropped, arrows jutting out of their heads. He rushed to the door as a voice inquired from behind it.
“What’s going on out there?”
The door peeled open in front of him and he kicked it all the way. It met resistance and a grunt, then he kicked it again. Once, twice. The third time, there was a grunt and a thud, followed by frantic footsteps. The chaos downstairs told him he was out of time; stealth was a viable option no longer.
He kicked the door wide open and rushed into the room, bow drawn. Everything happened fast. Six bodies rose to meet him, chairs scrambling across the floor in a dimly lit room. Five dropped as quickly as they’d risen. Ezril ducked into a roll and came up, hunting knife flying. The sixth body dropped. Without immediate danger he took quick stock. Five shafts stuck out of holes in five heads while the sixth man still clung onto the hunting knife in his chest.
Hurriedly, he closed the door behind him. Looking around, frantic, he found a large enough chair and wedged it beneath the handle. It wouldn’t buy him a lot of time when they came for him, but any time he could get was better than none.
He was still looking around for an exit when he spotted the old woman at the far end barely on her feet, slumped forward, to the side, and unmoving. One hand was drawn to the side by a chain clamped around the wrist and fastened to the ceiling, its shoulder popped out of its socket, while the other was flopped beside her, clamped in chains. But this one’s restraint was broken at its link. He assumed they must have held her up but she’d broken one at some point.
Her hair was short, falling forward in uneven strips of red and dingy brown, amidst it all there were hints of grey. The torn cloths hanging from her malnourished body concealed very little, and even from the distance he could easily count her ribs.
He approached her cautiously. The barely noticeable rise and fall of her shoulders were the only things that told him she still lived. From the state of her body, it was a miracle she was still alive. She bore cuts and hellish bruises all over her. One of her legs was twisted at an odd angle and he was certain such a grotesque break would never heal right. The leg was useless, and yet it still dripped blood just as every other cut up part of her. Most of her injuries were already festering.
He didn’t have the time for random emotions, and he knew if he did, he’d have pitied her. He thought to gain answers from her. If he was lucky, she would know where the others were kept. If she didn’t, he’d leave her and continue on his way.
If she does, you’ll leave her anyway, the thought crawled up from the dark detritus of his mind. He ignored it. It spoke true.
Close enough, he reached to tilt her face to him. She jerked away from his touch, her free hand shooting forward, aiming for his neck. Ignoring her face, he caught her hand and balked at the pain as the chain struck forward in a whiplash to suffer his back. The old lady still had some fight left in her. Good. Then she just might know something.
His once free hand now occupied, he strapped his bow behind him and reached for her face. She wasn’t done fighting. Her head shot up towards him, mouth open, and teeth clamped down in a loud chomp where his nose would have been had he not reacted fast enough. The woman was out for blood and—
It wasn’t an old woman.
The realization hit him like a mallet as he peered into the most damaged face he’d ever seen. Behind all the swelling and bruising and the rip in the right side of her face just below an eye that was swollen shut, there was no mistaking the green of the other eye that peered back.
The woman spoke when their eyes met. It was the tiniest whisper he’d ever heard. And it rocked him harder than any blow to the head.
“Ezril?”
