Chapter 1
The inn was crowded for such a small town, but at least it was a town. Even for the main road the size and frequency of towns was dwindling. With the mountains nearing, the party of four travelers needed to resupply and prepare for the cold mountain passes they would be taking. “I don’t get it anyway!” the youngest of the group, A shaggy haired, teenage boy named Seok, did not have to yell to be heard in the noisy common room. His companion, a tall, lanky man, shook his head in exasperation and all but shouted, “I've tried explaining it at least five times, it’s not that complicated.”
“All I'm saying is, why hide them in the first place? If they’re that dangerous to
read, then why not just get rid of them, that’d work better than hiding them
right?”
A
blond man in the humble gray robes of a temple priest on pilgrimage entered the
conversation for the first time since the group had sat down to eat. “Because
the Three are annoying and can’t be bothered to do anything properly.”
The
tall man replied to that with a sigh. “How did you ever manage to become the
High Priest with an attitude like that, Cain?”
“Because
the Three are freaks,” he replied, calmly sipping dark beer from the tankard in
front of him. The fourth member of their party, the stockiest of the bunch,
rubbed his hands together and smirked as he watched a barmaid with hair as
shockingly orange as his own was blood red. “Well I don’t give a rat's ass about
your stupid book, but there’s something over there I’d be happy to give something to.
I’ll be seeing you later.” He stuck the cigarette he had just rolled into the flame
of the lantern sitting in the middle of the table and sauntered off to accost
the poor bar maid.
Rumors
about him being loai or not, I don’t see how they could have banned him from
the brothels back in Central. He probably paid to keep the places standing.”
“If
he paid at all,” Seok put in around a mouthful of food.
“He
had to do something with his money, after all he only ever loses to Cain at the
tables. That’s probably the real reason they banned him from the gambling dens,
not him being loai.”
Meanwhile,
the subject of their conversation was busily maneuvering to trap barmaid with the
wild orange curls against the bar as she refilled a picher of ale. Turning
around as he approached, the young woman, in her late teens by the look of her,
nearly spilled the pitcher down Zija’s shirt. When he did not make a move to
get out of her way, the woman made an annoyed face tried to push past him; only
to be blocked by his arm across her chest. “Trying to run away?” he asked.
“Trying
to work,” she replied, looking up at him. “What do you want?”
“Your
name, to start with.”
The
woman pursed her lips. “Look, Red, I really don’t have time for your flirting
so I’ll be nice and tell you my name, and you can just go back to that table with
your boyfriends over there and leave me alone, okay?” Zija
smirked and lowered his arm. “Full of shit and vinegar huh? Sounds fun.”
The
woman reached up and pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and rubbed it out on
the tough woolen vest Zija wore. “The name’s Shula and these things stink, like
hell I’d ever kiss that smell. Just give it up.” She tossed this parting shot
over her shoulder as she moved into the press of people seated in the room,
pulling several hearty laughs from those near enough to have heard the
conversation.
Zija
went back to the table, not chastened in the least by Shula’s snub, but he did
not see the way her eyes lingered on their table as she moved around the room
the way that Cain and Seok could from their place across from him. Finally Seok
could stand it no longer and asked who she was. Zija glanced her way and told
him, “She said her name was Shula. Why the interest, think you’ve got a chance
with me around do ya, brat?”
“What
the hell? I didn’t say I liked her. I’m pretty sure we’ve seen her somewhere
else before though. I thought she might’ve been like an old girlfriend or
something.”
“Seen
her before? I’d have remembered that hair. I’ve never seen her before.”
“I’m
pretty sure I have, but I don’t remember where. A long time ago…” Zija reached
over the table to smack him on the head. “Don’t think too hard, you’re face
wrinkles up and you look like a monkey.”
Cain
sighed and put down his empty beer with a bang. “I don’t care who you spend the
night with, Zija, but if you wake me up, banging around drunk, trying to find
your bed like last time, I’ll beat the crap out of you. I’m going to bed.”
Zija
waved him off with a “Yeah, whatever,” and went back to his argument with Seok
while Lakin finished his drink and said he was going to bed as well. It was
getting late and the taproom was beginning to empty as the locals and travelers
alike drifted off to home and bed. As the room emptied Shula studiously ignored
the two remaining men at the table, though her attention was tuned to their
conversation until they too prepared to go up to their rooms for bed. Zija,
unable to give up on his prospects with her approached as she tried to wake a
drunk who had fallen off his chair and was sprawled across the floor.
“Do
me a favor, will ya, Red?” she asked as he came close. “Cart this guy out back
for me before he pukes so he doesn’t make a mess I’ll have to clean up.” When he
was about to protest she looked up at him with wide, innocent eyes. “Someone
with muscles as nice as those shouldn’t have a problem helping out a slip of a
girl like me, surely?” Zija said nothing to her sarcasm, only sighed
forbearingly and lifted the drunken man’s arm over his shoulder. As he dumped
the man in the courtyard between the inn and the shabby adjoining stables,
Shula said goodbye and made to leave, but she was stopped by his annoyed
question. “Why do you keep calling me Red?”
She
barked a laugh. “I figured I’d better start calling you that before you called
me it. Besides your hair is a hell of a lot more red than mine is anyway. ‘Night
then.” She turned and went into the inn leaving Zijo standing in the empty
courtyard with the sleeping drunk. “Shit,” he muttered. “Guess I’ve gotta go
sleep on the floor after all.” He went in the building to the room he was
sharing with Cain on the fourth and top floor of the inn.
The
rest of the night didn’t last long though. As the common room at the inn, and
then the streets of the town emptied, a loai raiding party was preparing to
strike. This group was a gruella unit that had been traveling from one human
village to another around the base of the mountains for months. The war between
the species had been going for nearly a century, but in recent years the
violence had escalated exponentially. People all over were aware of the change
and nearly everywhere the streets emptied soon after sunset. Only the largest
cities and those places far removed from the borders of loai land did not feel
the fear of their attack.
Loai
were similar to humans in many ways, perhaps making the centuries old war
between the species all the more bitter. Physically they were bigger boned and more
muscular than most humans, though, the difference might go completely unnoticed
due to the range of similar characteristics both species had. The most striking
differences were the hair color and the way loai ears pointed out away from
their heads. On this side of the nearly impassible mountain range nearly all
humans had black hair and dark eyes. The occasional brown head was usually
regarded as a beauty. Contrary to the popular belief among their enemies, loai
did not in fact have pointed teeth, or at least not naturally. It had become
customary among soldiers, especially near the borderlands, to file their teeth
into the pointed fangs that humans feared in a way similar to the teeth of the
wolves that lived feral in the mountains.
This
raiding party waited in the fringes of the forest surrounding the town. The
talk among them was hushed, but the excitement in the group was palpable. They
lived for the rush of battle, the panic and speed and adrenaline caused by
their early morning raids. Their leader, a large heavy loai with his auburn
hair cropped close to his head drew out a long knife and polished it on his leather
jerkin. “Almost time boys,” he announced. “Give ‘em another twenty minutes or
so to sleep, then we’ll be on ‘em like ticks.” One of his men laughed quietly
at the prospect, and the others stood and stretched, eager to be off.
Slipping
out of the tree cover and into the dark streets of the town was easy work, and
the buildings lining the streets that shaded the inhabitants from the sun so
nicely in the day created dark shadows for the fifteen loai to follow deeper
into the city. Two carried torches and touched them to the occasional thatched roves
of houses they passed. Fires sprang up from the dry grass and spread to the
wooden structure beneath and beside it. Orange light from the flames followed
the raiding party towards the center of the city.
As
the fires spread, the humans woke and streamed out of houses. Agonized screams
issued from those homes that held members trapped within. Darting through the
shadows the loai ignored the panicking humans in their wake and made for the
biggest structure in the town.
The
guests at the inn slept peacefully, still far enough away from the panic on the
borders that they had no warning of the loai who approached. They came bursting
in through the front gates, breaking the locks that attempted to keep the inn’s
patrons safe from thieves, but were not up to the task of keeping out the
militant loai. They came in, kicking down random doors and attacking the startled
travelers in their beds. This was the loai’s goal. The body count did not need
to be high, only the terror. They would let the rest of the town burn but the
inn, the largest and most well-known structure in the town would remain, it’s
customers never rising from their beds to leave the city.
Zija
and Cain’s room was on the fourth floor, but Zija, a light sleeper at the best
of times was woken by the slams and screams issuing from the floors below. He rose
from his bed roll on the floor and kicked the bed Cain lay asleep in. “Hey get
up. Something’s going on downstairs.” Cain muttered something unintelligible as
Zija pulled on his vest and grabbed the seemingly innocent walking stick that
served as a weapon. Suddenly there was a scream and a resounding BAM that shook
the walls of the whole building. Zija grinned, “Sounds like whoever it is just found
out how much Seok likes being woke up in the morning.”
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