Post by The Smith on Aug 30, 2008 13:33:27 GMT -5
Fat raindrops hit the puddles like little stones flung from tiny celestial trebuchets, causing brown water to splash up against the hems of my robes. I pulled the cowl down further over my face and pressed forward through the torrent. It had been many long years since I’d been to Bronzegate, but better to avoid contact, just in case. That’s why I couldn’t be bothered to travel under the eaves of the shops and houses. Simply too many people who might stick their heads out, and think they recognized a man, who’d once been this way before, a long time ago.
I reached the great oak door of the sept, and knocked on the door. The hymns which could be heard through the door, in tune to the flickering candle lights, hadn’t changed in the time I’d been gone. Hopefully little else had changed as well.
I knocked again just as the metal grate slid open to reveal a set of beady eyes deeply encased in layers of thick grimy skin. The kind of eyes you expect see behind the door of the roughest taverns, not the local sept.
“Whose there?” a gruff voice which went with the eyes asked.
“Open up, I need to speak to Porge.”
“Porge ain’t here.” The man made a snorting sound through his snout-like nose.
“Yeah he is, open up.” I replied, holding his gaze until he grew uncomfortable and looked away.
The door opened with a creak, as Pig Face rested one meaty paw upon the hilt of a short sword in his belt. “Search… you.” He said, as if each word was a life time of effort.
“That won’t be necessary…” I said, willing myself to relax to avoid the telltale tension of the guilty.
I forced myself to look away from the guard and scanned the room. Seven walls of sleek cold stone, just like any Sept anywhere in Westeros. I glanced upon the statute of the Father, standing tall… looking down upon the faithful.
No. Not looking. For he had no eyes. Nor did any of the other tall carved statutes of the Seven. Eyeless. Every one of them, even the Maiden in her innocence.
Distracted by this odd departure from custom, I was awoken from my reverie.
“Search NOW!” Pig Face said again, showing an inch of cold dull steel from the scabbard.
“That will not be necessary… for our old friend has nothing which can do us harm.” The voice, smooth as the marble of a mausoleum was a whisper above the sound of the hymns.
Porge .
Teacher Porge stood between rows of occupied woodened pews, men and women bowing their heads, in silent prayer.
“How have you been my child?” he asked, his hands tucked behind his back, as he ambled slowly forward.
“Well enough Master Porge, well enough.” I said, my head bowed, as an apprentice to his master.
“Are you still afraid to die?” He asked, his eyes locking into the top of my hooded head with an intense gaze. For a moment I feared I would melt just to meet them.
“Would I be here if I was?” I replied, as I pushed my hood up, and met his look.
“Ah. Flea. Yes. In truth I think you would. Still you’ve grown quite a bit. The rats shall have to work very diligently to chew you into small enough pieces now.”
Porge flicked his left hand with a single deft movement, and Pig Face reached for his sword, but not before the long knife in the sheath on my hip was out and plunging into his blubbery body. Once, twice, three times, until the light went out in his eyes, and he felt to the ground like a feast day ham.
The hymns stopped and the shrieking began.
“Those who die in the Service of the Dead God will rise again!” Porge yelled.
A screeching woman with long nails jumped over the last pew, seeking to claw at my face. The sudden impact of the military pick coming the other direction crumpled her like a sack of flour with a hole in the bottom, and she crashed to the ground.
“Those who die in the service of King Rickon get buggered for their troubles!” cried the man wearing dingy ringmail beneath a long tattered cloak, as he tore the pick out of the dead cultist’s ribs with his foot on her breast. It was an ugly sight to witness.
I’d missed my old friend Scav.
Beside him were two blonde men with short cropped hair in similar attire. Each held a sword in a low guard, eyes darting across the small mob. They didn’t say anything, but that was to be expected, for both Syms and Tyms were mute.
I scanned the room while keeping my eyes on Porge. Arising behind him were the rest of the parishioners, I counted eight or nine in all. Their armaments were small knives, short clubs, length of chain and homemade morning stars. Certainly not professional killers like Scav and the twins…like me.
I ducked a wooden chair leg covered in heavy iron nails just as the notion took me that it didn’t have to be professional to be lethal.
I slashed with the long knife severing the tendons in the man’s forearm, before drawing the dagger from my right sleeve and burying it between his neck and collar bone.
“Boss, look out!” Scav yelled, as a thick butcher’s cleaver slashed across my chest, and very nearly through the brigandine armor concealed beneath the robes of the brown brother.
I swiveled and riposted with a thrust into the man’s armpit. A fatal strike even if he was wearing armor, which he wasn’t. Poor deluded small folk. Such is the price of heresy and treason I suppose.
Porge saw the battle was going against him, and despite claiming no fear of death, he obviously didn’t intended to stick around to meet his. I bolted after him as I heard another of the cultists wailed, Scav’s pick buried unceremoniously into their entrails.
I had seen the trail of Master Porge’s robes disappearing down steps into the cellar, and I slowed up as I headed down into the torchless dark.
I advanced slowly, one foot before the other, using my toe to search the footing and insure there was nothing on which to trip, nor broken glass or dried leaves to give away my position. My eyes adjusted to the darkness as much as they were able, but I could find no sight of my quarry.
Scratch, scratch.
That familiar sound which had haunted my dreams these last eight years.
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
It came out of no where, its mouth open wide, two empty eye sockets in its skull, wrapped in shrunken and blackened skin.
Hands, cold and black clawed at my wrists, and I screeched. In surprise, in fear, I lashed out, slashing with both knife and dagger. Gone the cold and steady thrusts I’d been taught from childhood, only the most primal of human urges.
Survive, live, run.
“Bloody Pox!” Scav’s throaty roar awoke me from my instinctive retreat as his pickaxe sailed over my left shoulder and buried itself in the gray cavernous chest of the thing before me. The force of it threw the creature to ground and it let out its first sound, a wail of anger more than pain.
“Thanks Scav, Bastard nearly had me there.” I looked around the room. There was more light now, than before, almost as if that thing had taken the light out of the room by its mere presence. I saw an altar in the corner, with a book, and black candles, and a plate with something red and meaty on it. I had just reached out and grabbed the book when I heard Scav yell.
“Fucking thing is still alive!” He said as he brought the pick down again, smashing its ribs like a convict breaking rocks in hard labor.
Still it struggled to rise.
“Leave it!” I yelled, grabbing the Stormlands veteran by the nape of his collar and dragging him backwards up the stairs as the eyeless horror stood, bleeding from three sizeable wounds delivered by Scav’s pick.
“Fools. You’ll die here!” The thing said in a voice neither male nor female, as blood began to gush from its eyeless sockets.
“Scav?”
“Yes, Boss.”
“RUN!” I cried. He didn’t need a second order, as the two of us scampered up the steps as fast as we could. When we reached the main hall of the inverted Sept, Syms and Tyms were busy spreading lamp oil on the floors and walls.
“Light this son of a whore!” Scav said as we both headed to the exit.
Neither twin could reply, but they clearly understood the order, as Syms tossed a torch onto the altar, flowed by a “woosh” of flame.
The four of us fled into the square.
A carriage pulled up. A team of two horses pulling a small wooden cart.
“You fine fellas need a ride?” Tye laughed as he sat, the reins in his hands, his lyre seated beside him.
“You might say that,” I replied, as the four of us hopped into the hay filled cart, and Tye clicked his teeth.
We had a long ride back to King’s Landing. Enough time to get a good look at what that Eyeless creature had kept as reading material. Maybe it would point the way towards wherever Porge had fled to.
Behind us the Inverted Sept of Bronzegate burned as bright as the Hightower. It would be an empty stone shell when the locals finally got the fire out. Purged… cleansed by the flames. I hoped.
Results:
Flea improves towards Grandmaster of small blades
Flea improves to beginner Higher Mysteries.
Scav Improves to Expert Pickaxe
Scav Improves to Noteworthy Espionage