[h3]CHAPTER 9 - UNDERSTANDING THE SIGNS, PART TWO[/h3]

  Axe simply nodded to Screen after that plain statement. Battery felt himself grow calmer as he became more accustomed to the presence of the man. He steadily relaxed more with the realization that if he– a Royal Guardsman– had been concerned by the man's appearance, it would certainly be worse for anyone poor enough to be on the receiving end of his attention. Battery raised from his bow at the nonverbal response to his salute, and he saw Zap rising from hers at his side a moment later.

  He looked for Vigil, but she was already halfway across the storeroom, going back to her uncertain orbit with Screen. Screen took that as his cue to begin filling them in. "Right. Our orders are fairly simple– Axe has a number of locations that we'll be visiting with them, and it's our job to clear them out and be loud doing it. We're sending a message." Vigil seemed to be openly eying Axe with suspicion.

  Battery felt his shoulders relax, the tenseness of the moment leaving him. On his side, Zap glanced at him, and only once the tension left his frame did she seem to be capable of relaxing.

  "Everybody understand?"

  He received a flurry of two-fingered taps to the forearm from everybody except Axe.

  Axe didn't move at first. There was this sense of… stillness, to the man. It wasn't hesitation, because quite frankly, looking at the man and trying to apply the term to him felt wrong. It felt more like a boulder deciding when to roll, the stillness of people sitting in fear of a rumble shaking the roof of the mineshaft.

  Then, after a pause, he raised his hand and gave a single, slow tap against his armored forearm with two massive fingers– less a gesture of acknowledgement and more a signal that he understood them, but ultimately– wasn't bound by them.

  Battery boggled at the thought of the man being able to be bound to anything. A faint rustling sounded.

  Everyone stood in silence for a moment, staring at the man who remained motionless. His helmet didn't have eye slits– no visible openings, but there wasn't a single doubt in Battery's mind that he wasn't watching them. The weight of his attention was thick in the air, something you felt more than you saw.

  Axe gave a single sign. A beckoning hand. He didn't need anything– he certainly all had their focus. If he said follow, they'd follow. He began moving, stone chains rattling with a thunk-cunk-chunk. He shifted his axe– his namesake– and held it with one hand almost absently, as if it weighed nothing, glassy-black obsidian and dark-grey granite flashing and catching in the dim-light.

  Battery had almost expected a weapons check, or something of the sort. Sharpen it, maybe? He just stood there for a breath, holding it.

  He abruptly took a step forward, breaking the spell he had over everyone's attention. Leading them out and down the road, closer to the coast. The cobbled city streets passed by with the cramped, taller buildings penning one another in. Calbruth was a populated trading port.

  He felt Zap return closer to his side. Her presence was more than welcome. Vigil floated closer than usual to Screen, poking him and darting back as Axe lumbered ahead of them. Battery imagined that Screen was probably mortified at the thought of the man seeing Vigil's blatant insubordination– Vigil was probably just daring Screen to try and get back at her.

  Vigil had a tendency to be more than a little petty. He had learnt to avoid her ire fairly quickly. Screen, it seemed, would never learn.

  They hit the coastline, the sea-breeze hit his nose with a ferocity he hadn't expected. Strong, salty, wet. He could see a great number of warehouses at the edge of the water, before the docks. It stank of fish. Entirely unfamiliar to him, all of it– he'd never been this close to such a large body of water in his life before.

  He looked out at the midday sun, having well passed noon and begun to head towards twilight hours, but not quite there yet– and the way it met the waterline, warm oranges and reds blending and melting against the crashing waves, sea-foam breaking up the color in a way that felt more purposeful than not, as if the world had been designed to be so beautiful.

  It made the world look like it was bathed in gold, for a heartstopping instant.

  He stared in awe.

  It took him a moment to realize he had stopped. When he startled, Zap grabbed his arm and he felt the gentle squeeze she gave it, before tugging him and increasing her speed to catch up where Screen and Vigil were trailing behind Axe, still moving in slow, constant, lumbering steps. They hadn't run into any civilians. Not that he could see.

  Battery wasn't sure if that was intentional or not.

  As he and Zap hurried to return to the safety of the pack, He saw Vigil, still moving with that too-fast and stood-still walking pattern, looking back at them, and recognized the motion she made with her head as her rolling her eyes. Battery flushed underneath his helmet, not that anyone could see it.

  The Royal Guard had shown him more beautiful things than not so far– could he be blamed for finding it a bit stunning? Being taken aback at the splendor of it?

  Zap certainly seemed to have a pep in her step though– but she had apparently been like that since he was assigned to their squad. From what Vigil had told him, she'd been far more dour and… generally unhappy before he arrived. He wasn't sure what was so special about him. Vigil had just said he was the unluckiest man she'd ever met, and wished him luck.

  Battery still didn't understand what that meant.

  It wasn't typical of Battery to really get lost in thought like this– but, even for the late hour, the area certainly seemed barren.

  He had only seen four people on their walk, all who had quickly made haste to be anywhere that wasn't their intended direction. They weren't taking a direct route, either, they would regularly cut through alleys and small passageways between buildings that he couldn't imagine anyone except someone intimately familiar with the city would know.

  Well- the streets were barren. People still watched, from windows mostly closed, fearful. Axe navigated with too much familiarity– there was no way they would send the man to work in his own city.

  Maybe there was something to the rumors, after all.

  They finally reached another warehouse, a piece of graffiti with a rat being stabbed on the wall of it– there didn't seem to be anything particularly different about this one from the rest on the coastline, from his perspective. Unless one counted public defacement, but that was something that unfortunately happened in populated cities. Vigil let out a low scoff when they passed by the graffiti. Axe stopped.

  "Here. Keep the leader alive."

  Screen went through a few signs. They began to form up. Screen's orange, translucent barrier lifted up in a sphere around them, and he saw Vigil kneel, head bowed, as eight knives slipped free of their sheathe, and floated above her head in a fan. Vigil brought both of her hands up in front of her. Zap went and took a knee across from her, watching her hands.

  Battery followed behind Zap, a reversal of their usual dynamic, remaining standing as he put a hand on her shoulder and began to cycle healing magic in her system, at a low feed. He would need to reduce her strain.

  Screen walked to kneel next to Vigil, so he could whisper in her ear. Axe spoke up, stone grinding.

  "No. Loud. Like your training exercises."

  Screen looked back at Axe. There was a brief pause, before he stood back up and took a step away from Vigil. He signed to Vigil. Vigil murmured, just loud enough for them to hear her.

  "Fourteen of 'em. Four crossbows, nine swords. Found the leader."

  Everyone stayed still, and silent, as Vigil continued her work. Axe turned to Screen.

  "Use your extra discipline. Create barriers around the exits. Leave the leader. No survivors."

  "I–" Screen startled. "What extra discipline, Sir?" Battery saw Vigil's form on the ground tense, her head snapping up. Zap tensed with her. Shit. Don't tell him– had Screen and Vigil…?

  Axe paused, staring at Screen. Battery could imagine how Screen would be sweating in his armor at the stare. It felt like he might not be as much on their side as he was a minute ago. Part of him wondered if he was about to witness an execution.

  It wasn't out of the question.

  Axe signed, with excessive slowness. A few standard signs, and one nonstandard.

  I, Speak, Crown

  His final sign was more damning, stone shifted, and a smooth, featureless ring of obsidian formed in his hands.

  There was a pause. Vigil's staring from where it was lolling downwards a moment ago as he heard her intake breath, fast and sharp. Screen was frozen stock-still. Axe, with a head tilt that was too extreme to be anything but a questioning gesture, tapped again with excessive slowness, two fingers to his forearm.

  Understood?

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  He'd never seen Screen perform a sign so fast.

  Seconds later, he watched orange barriers form up over every visible window in the building. Vigil's head bowed back down, but he saw how her fingers trembled.

  "A-" Screen started to speak, but even Battery could hear how the words got caught in his throat, for a moment. "A-Alright." He seemed to grow more comfortable, more secure with every word. "Vigil, did I miss anywhere?" There was a brief pause of silence as Vigil sat, head down.

  "...second story window, back-left of the building, towards the-" Vigil paused briefly.

  "-Good. You got it. No one's hiding, no way out. On your mark."

  "Mark." The knives around Vigil flew into the building, going through barriers smoothly and crashing through the windows. He saw one of the knives was sitting in the window, floating almost peacefully. He didn't have to wait long for Vigil to find her first targets. She called it- fingers flashing through numbers– the corresponding enchanted knives. Then, finally, Vigil screamed, loud and furious.

  "LIGHTNING!"

  Zap's body tensed, he saw her arm shift, second arm bracing it like a cannon, directed by his discipline– he knew– up towards the knife floating in the window. She responded, voice so loud it must be painful.

  "THUNDER!"

  There was a monstrous boom, he heard windows shatter, and he immediately poured healing into Zap, feeling the awful amount of full-body strain from the nonphysical and physical draw of the magic for a moment before he began soothing it almost completely. This was what he had always been best at– helping other people, finding ways for others to succeed in what they needed to do. It felt good.

  It was what he'd been raised to do.

  Vigil flashed numbers, again, too fast for him to keep up. Zap watched intently, kneeling and bracing herself. Then, again-

  "LIGHTNING!"

  Battery remembered when he had asked why they used these call-and-responses for training. Screen's response had been something he clearly took a small amount of humorous pride in.

  'Because, Battery. You see the lightning first, then you hear-'

  "THUNDER!"

  An arm shifted, another deafening boom, he could feel the terrible strain that he immediately set about fixing as fast as he could, lest she die from the next cast. It was recoverable if she did die from overcasting, but it would cost more. The faint trembling of exertion in Zap's form slowly fading away moments after firing.

  —-—

  Dominic Everstead watched the group of four Royal Guardsmen go about the task he had assigned with a clinical precision. The shock of him being able to piece together what they had hidden fading away as they smoothly slotted into a routine they had been trained for a lifetime to do.

  He was torn between feeling all too old for this, and feeling that they were all far too young. Young and in love, fools who could not know anything else. He supposed he was probably not any better. He knew how he got about his wife. She's the one who had convinced him to be 'extra spooky' for his work, after all.

  He still remembered having to practice walking with the chains to make some sound but not too much. It was good practice for his balance and stoneshaping– sometimes chains would be rattling, want it or not, and the best way to avoid it would be to sneakily smush them together softly.

  He also remembered having to learn basic sculpting lessons from an artist they had privately commissioned through the crown, his wife sitting to the side, continuously offering bone-chilling suggestions for what to make to the obvious discomfort of the middle-aged man who had been there to tutor him.

  The woman left the Drakonian labor camps with an enjoyment of the macabre. He supposed it was why she liked him. The crown had encouraged his wife's suggestions, and as such, they became law. Or close to it, really.

  Dominic didn't really consider things like law. The crown would approve, or they would not. He would serve.

  For now, he simply observed. The young ones worked in tight harmony, something more than practiced and less than rehearsed. It was instinctive, muscle memory born from trust. Dominic Everstead– Axe– recognized it because it had surrounded his entire life, long ago.

  He did not move as Vigil flashed another set of numbers, nor when Zap braced herself again. It was all expected, all within their predetermined rhythm. He let the sound roll over him as another thunderous boom split the soundscape, feeling the brief ripple of displaced air and raw energy before it dissipated.

  His mind, meanwhile, was already moving ahead.

  The building would be full of dying men now, survivors steadily being pruned by unstoppable, furious poundings of electrical light and sound directed by knives enchanted to be lightning rods. The leader would try to fight, to cower, or to bargain– none of it would matter. He wasn't a negotiator.

  This was a purge, and a message. He felt for the tremors, the faint vibrations of movement inside– the blasting of the lightning made the sense unreliable for moments during the blast before it levelled out or he took the focus to steady the stone he thinly spread out under the ground for hundreds of meters in every direction. They thankfully weren't actually alone. Walking to gather as many lookouts as possible to catch this act to make the message that much louder would hopefully have made their rather inane path worth it.

  The gang followers also did a wonderful job to keep the actual civilians away.

  He felt when the movement stopped everywhere, all except for one.

  He turned his head, rattled the chains discreetly to garner enough attention. It was a trick his wife had realized– it made him give the impression of being able to grab one's attention without a movement. It was because people heard the chains and expected to see movement, so they honed in on him. It turned out– you could make the sound so low and distant most people didn't even realize it was there consciously.

  Again, his wife proved her deviousness.

  My wife, he thought, despite being literally less dangerous than me, has a far, far more devious mind than me.

  "We're moving in," he felt himself say, voice low. It never sounded like him, though, not with the stone and tone he never took anywhere else.

  Still- the armor, the weapon, the place and the role he took.

  That always felt far, far too much like him. Comfortable in a way beyond words. Beyond the comforts of fatherhood, of a house and home alive with sound and laughter. Part of him wondered if he had been born wrong, if this was just a curse of their family, or if his father had truly managed to break him and his brother so deeply that they could find solace in the same terrible chaos that men longed to leave so desperately, before it had all fallen apart.

  It made him wonder if his son had been broken in the same way. He resisted the urge to curse his brother's ghost.

  Screen nodded at his response, "Vigil?"

  The dainty woman was still, and no older than his son. She was still for a moment, "All clear for entry."

  Dominic didn't bother acknowledging them.

  He had declared their entry before she had confirmed their cleanse complete for a reason. He didn't need the assurance.

  He heard the smooth scraping of steel as men and women rose and drew blades, could feel how the dainty one stepped in behind him, taking point behind his bulk, knives flying back to her and entering a hungry orbit, footsteps so loose on the dirt that he almost had to pay attention to see her with tremorsensing.

  Almost. He still had it, of course.

  Dominic entered first.

  The air inside was thick with smoke, and the smell of burnt ozone. The ugly stench of burning flesh mixed with the foulness of corpses voiding themselves. The smell was familiar, and he didn't falter. He stepped on the body without looking down, bones and flesh being crushed, pulped in an instant under overbearing weight.

  Another step, a corpse twitching, a half-spasm from nerves that no longer had a mind to direct them. Another corpse. Another step. Every time he stepped on a body, the metallic copper scent of blood rose up to the fore, dominating the senses before anything else. The smell of human mulch.

  Dominic reached the next room, cutting a line through corpses underneath his feet, pulping them with each step. Letting the chains rattle louder.

  He spoke, with purpose. It was not loud– he did not need to be, when the world was consumed by such silence, everyone struck into listening and little more. His voice was no louder than a calm conversation. It broke through the quiet with all the commanding attention of a yell regardless.

  "Vance Moreau. The Crown has found you guilty of treason. You have collaborators. I do not need their names."

  He readied his axe. It did not matter if the door to the room Vance was in was locked or not– trying a locked door would violate one of the personal rules he had set for maintaining the myth. Axe would not try to open a door and fail. Axe would remove the door to sidestep the problem entirely.

  He took a step, putting force into it. It landed on wooden floorboards with a horrendous crash. He brought the axe up, and could hear whimpering on the other side.

  He brought it down. A smooth, practiced motion.

  The door did not fall down. It fell apart, shattered like glass under overwhelming force.

  The blade moved through the solid object with as much resistance as a man moving his arms in water. It sent debris flying into the dimly lit room beyond. The whimpering inside shifted into a startled cry. Dominic stepped forward, chains clinking, the weight of his presence suffocating the air out of the room.

  He felt like sighing when he saw him. He was so young. No older than his son, likely younger. He mentally adjusted his plans for this conversation. What a tragedy. Vance Moreau was backed against the far wall, his ratty coat singed, hair in disarray, sweat rolling down the tanned boy's pale face. His fingers twitched at his sides, inching towards the dagger at his belt.

  It was a foolish thought. A boy reaching for help that would mean nothing.

  "Don't," Dominic spoke. His voice crashing stone and rolling thunder.

  Vance froze.

  Behind him, the squad filed in, silent shadows of judgement. Vigil's knives hovered in lazy arcs. Screen stood at her side. Battery and Zap remained near the door, looking out. Watching for the possibility– however slim– of reinforcements.

  Dominic took another step forward. Vance shrank back, but he had nowhere to go.

  "You know why we're here." He rumbled.

  Vance swallowed hard. His lips moved, forming the beginnings of a plea, an excuse, a lie– Dominic didn't care what. He had lost any rights to personhood upon committing treason– it demanded death, but he could maneuver a mercy.

  "Hand. Eye. Foot. Choose two."

  The boy's eyes watered. He could see him visibly fight the urge to plead, to cry and beg. But this was a boy who had commanded and aided fifteen others to go against trade orders of the King. To violate rules put in place by a higher power. Tears streamed down his face.

  The Tidebourne family had known him. Had known of his activity. Facilitated it. They would be next, after more criminal elements here were cleansed. A small barony stricken from existence in a night like a whisper. He snuffed out candles, burning spirits and souls gone, everywhere he trod. Thank the gods they didn't have children.

  They were not the only family. Far, far from it. He had killed less than four dozen over the past six years. He had killed over three dozen in the past six weeks. It was only getting worse.

  Still- he would not allow for his fellows to take the kills by hand.

  They did not need a stain in their life, in their memory. Not so soon, so early. When their jobs were normally being bodyguards for children. When they grew too tired to continue, he would work alone. They were too young to bear the burden. It would happen sooner, rather than later, but he would delay it another day. They would think him a monster for it. They would likely be right.

  But there was a reason Dominic was still alive, still fighting. Still winning, in a profession where most retired some time after their early twenties to settle down, or died before they could make it, while being over double their age. A man capable of walking into rooms full of trained killers and leaving corpses behind.

  He allowed the boy to collect himself. To ready himself– to prepare to lose pieces of himself, permanently. It was the only kindness he could afford, agency, wrapped in the illusion of unstoppable power, patience, and control. He would wait here for dozens of minutes, if he had to.

  Staring down a boy for a near-hour before maiming him would add to the myth. He privately encouraged the boy to collect himself enough to think meaningfully about it before deciding and no longer. The anticipation of the loss would be worse than the reality.

  He knew from experience.

  Vance trembled, breath coming in shallow gasps as he squeezed his eyes shut. The quiet of the room stretched, pressed against the child like an unbearable weight. Afraid to speak, afraid to move. The hands which had once wielded authority over men who had entrusted their lot in him– criminals, but still trusting in his judgement to lead them– clenched and unclenched as if testing their last moment of wholeness.

  Dominic waited. The patience of someone who had seen too much, who had done too much, seeping himself into the silence. He had lost urgency a few lifetimes ago. The boy would break soon enough, and make his choice.

  Vance shuddered, forcing his eyes open. "My foot," he whispered. His voice cracked, raw from fear. "A-and my eye."

  The eye was a good choice. He offered it as a mercy. The foot– it would be the worst to recover from in the short term, the most life altering, the worst to adjust to. But in the long term it would be easier on him than the loss of a hand. He could work a trade or a craft.

  He understood the implicit mercy behind being chosen to send a message. He would get to continue to live, and would not be thrown to prison. Dominic would not have judged his choices– but regardless, he applauded the boy for being pragmatic. Thinking of living a long life instead of a short one. He listened, and absorbed the words as if they meant nothing, and gave a slight nod.

  The squad didn't move, although he could feel how tense they were. It was not often that the reality of their work was so ugly, and he imagined this set was less experienced than most.

  Unbelievable. They wanted these people with him on the battlefield?

  Dominic adjusted the grip on his axe.

  He did not let the moment stretch on. It would be a pointless cruelty.

  Before Vance could realize what was happening–

  Dominic moved.

  A single step. A shift of weight. An arc of obsidian, basalt, and lining diamond in a flash of light.

  The scream was instant.

  The blade shearing through cloth and body in a single stroke. The severed foot tumbled to the floor, and the boy reached down in a panic to the missing limb, as if he could force it back together. As he was, he would tumble backwards and hit his head on the wall–

  Dominic moved forwards in a rush of movement, flipping the grip on his axe to grab the pommel.

  He caught the boy and slammed the pommel into his occipital bone in the process, doing a quick work of stoneshaping on its end that he would not bear to think about with a wet sound resulting. He resisted the urge to grimace.

  This was ugly, terrible, evil work.

  The sound the boy made wasn't even human. The terrible sight did not arouse any sort of nausea within him. Such reflexes had left him a long time ago.

  Dominic exhaled. The act was already done, as quick and painless as he could make it while not being deemed too merciful. Dominic angled the boy and pressed him down from the collar, sliding him against the wall to the floor as gently as possible, not that it would seem as such to onlookers. A large beast pinning a man to the floor.

  The others remained where they were, unmoving, staring at his handiwork.

  They had likely seen worse, dead men and electrocuted bodies. But they had not done worse– not personally experienced the mental effects of committing violence and brutality upon fellow men and women. Not this close. Magic was very good for distancing one from the reality of their actions.

  He turned to Battery, and Zap. The two out of four lovebirds that inhabited the team. "Stop the bleeding. Heal him to be as functional as he'll get. He will carry the message of what happened here." They would understand not to fix the limb and eye.

  They moved without hesitation. Battery was the faster of the two– he would bet that he had wanted to rush over, to heal the boy from the moment he had performed the first strike.

  He wasn't cut out for this work. The royal bastard shouldn't have ever demanded him to the unit. Should've let him get shuffled into caring for old men on the crown's dime like he'd been planned to do. Love sometimes meant letting go, but he doubted that the woman understood that much.

  Screen seemed shocked, staring off to the wall. Vigil stared at him, openly, shifting her weight from foot to foot, uncomfortable. They weren't good enough– peace had dulled them. Or maybe they'd been shuffled to a permanent guard detail for a reason. Dominic didn't bother wiping the blood from his axe.

  Some days, he did not mind his job. It was even mildly enjoyable, he could admit.

  What a fucking miserable day.