The Art of Killing

[Clarke667]

Hey hey. Got something I’m working on that I’d like to post, a sort-of sequel to The Art of Dying. I say “sort-of” because… well, I guess you’ll find out. No need for me to belabour the point.

Anyways, this story’s in a bit of a rougher state than I’d like it to be (only a draft and a polish), but to tell you the truth, this is where I tend to flounder the most. So any thoughts, comments, questions, rants, raves and/or musings would be greatly appreciated. Seriously. Go ****ing nuts.

Since this story turned out to be quite lengthy, I’ve decided to cut it up into easily-digestible pieces. I’m not savvy on the way this is usually done, so I’m just gonna wing it and post two chapters a day. This can be stepped up (or down) upon request.

And here we go.







The Art of Killing



Part 1: Convergence


Chapter One

Inevitability had come to her. Funny how that happened, sometimes; inevitability like a marker on the horizon, every day getting a bit closer, the marker bigger and bigger until you’re forced to lay your hands on it. Inevitable, she thought. Inexorable. Here I am with my hands on the marker.

It wasn’t a big deal, though. That’s what Seph was always saying. Not a big deal, sis. Keep it steady. Garbage words. Cold comfort. It’s no big deal, yeah.

“Hungry?” Sephony said. Her widebrim hat was tipped down over her eyes. The windowslats were half closed and the amber sunlight painted the cab in thin bars. She could smell leather, polished mahogany.

“No,” Willowyn said. They shifted in the cab. They rode a knot in the rails and Sephony held her hat as they bounced in the seats.

Two years I’ve been putting this off, Willowyn thought. But here I am, on Trans-kingdom Rail. Inexorable.

The train hissed and hollered over the rails. Fingering open a slat, Willowyn looked out at a blurred yellow landscape. The wind sifted her long hair and fluttered the chequered kerchief tied around her neck.

Sephony plugged a cheroot between her lips. She cupped a match in the smooth shell of her hands and sparked it with her thumbnail. The smoke was cobalt blue and rich.

“Ride’s a bit smoother’n I thought it’d be.”

“Aye.”

She nudged the brim of her hat and her moth-coloured eyes flashed with humour. “Aye,” she said, enjoying her sister’s discomfort. “Doin’ all right?”

“I’m just fine, thank ya. Why worry on a train?”

“Well… if we happen to jump the rails—”

“Won’t happen.”

“You sure? I hear it happens, us going so fast and all. The train jumps and the engine-room goes up, and then it’s a funeral pyre for all us paying passengers. You know how these rails were set. You trust the work of goblins with your life?”

Willowyn grit her teeth. She wouldn’t let her sister bait her fear. “The gobs may be dumb as dung, but they worked. And when they didn’t we took care of em. I got ninety gold takin care of em, you got seventy. That’s a hunnert-sixty coin says these rails were set right.”

That was back in Aranoch, where the railwork was hardest. The sisters were paid to watch over the imps as they slaved under the scorching sun, setting rails and hammering them, trudging iron spikes in wheel-barrels, the wheels always getting sputtered in the sand and the spikes tipping over. The imps sweating and falling to their bony knees and so many of them just keeling over and dying by the rails. Others, though: others ran, that’s where the sisters made their coin. They got two gold a head for deserters and slackers.

“I heard a cow wandered onto the tracks two week ago,” Sephony said. “The train splashed it and its guts got caught in the wheelworks and the train went screeching off the—”

“I’m hungry,” Willowyn blurted out, though she tried to make it sound casual. “Let’s grab lunch.”


The meal-car was long and spacious, filled with tables and the tables filled with men in fine suits and women in gowns, their sleeves of their gowns frilled, ivory canes and coloured parasols leaning against their chairs. The smells of meat and corn and coffee, fresh fruit and milk.

All eyes moved to the sisters as they waited by the podium to be seated.

Conversation hushed.

Unperturbed, Sephony reached into her vest and checked her platinum timepiece. She knew what they were looking at: the Archangel .45 slung low and deadly on her hip, the roundnosed bullets winking in the loops on her belt. Gun-iron always sent a shiver up a plutocrat’s spine, especially when they were locked on a train with nowhere to hide.

Willowyn glared openly at them. Her hand never fell to her matching Archangel, but they could see it in her eyes, how she wanted to slap leather and fan hammer.

The hushed words drifting around them. Bounty killers. Headhunters. Assassin.

A man in a white tux nervously seated them in a booth by the window. This was wise. With the sisters safely out of sight the mood in the cab broke and the passengers began to relax.

“Gods rot all trains,” Willowyn hissed to herself. She ran her long fingers through her hair.

Sephony studied the menu.

“Weeping blood,” swore Willowyn. “How much longer’s this trip?”

“A few hours to the station. Then it’s a day’s coach to Sadness.”

“Coach, good. Now there’s a way to travel. And what’s that dogswallowing smell?”

“I don’t smell a thing.”

“Smell again. I know that… that stench.” Her nostrils oculated. “I know that…” Her eyes widened. “Imp.”

Sephony placed the menu on the table.

“Imp?”

“Smell it. Baal’s livid penis, that’s definitely imp!”

They scanned the car.

“There, in the far corner,” Willowyn said. “Look at the little bastard. Gods, he’s a blueskin.” She hawked and spat on the floorboards. “Worst kind, those puny blue rothearts.”

Sephony squinted. “He’s got a menu.”

“What? Well that settles it. Let’s pay him a visit.”

They traversed the car slowly. Willowyn tucked a thumb behind her gunbelt and rested her palm on the bullets, her small finger almost touching the mouth of the roughout holster.

Sephony cupped flame and lit a smoke.

In his booth, the small imp was propped on a pile of books and his thin legs dangled under the table. His wispy brown beard was cut and groomed, his eyes two glittering stones in his sharp face, like pyrite. Incredibly, the imp was wearing a tiny pinstriped suit—badly stitched, homemade, but a suit nonetheless. He had a white piece of cloth tucked and folded at his neckline, a makeshift cravat. An old bowler hat that was much too big for him, even though it was for a child.

They stood over him.

“What a rare day,” Willowyn drawled. “An imp actin’ like a man.”

The imp nodded politely to them. A bead of sweat ran down his neck, but to his credit he did not shiver with fear.

Again the car was silent.

“Mind if we take a seat?”

He gestured to the empty side of the booth. His finger betrayed him and trembled.

“What, can’t talk?” Willowyn asked. “You a mute’r something?”

The imp cleared his throat. “N-no. Please sit.” His voice was thin and jagged, like he was talking with a mouthful of razorblades. Willowyn snorted disgustedly at the sound of it.

They slid into the booth.

“Never saw a goblin with a suit before,” Willowyn said, nailing the slur hard, looking for any show of defiance so she could legally crush him. “Make that suit yourself, blueskin?”

The imp hid partially behind the menu. “My wife,” he said. “My wife sewed it.”

“Your wife, huh? Hear that Sephony? His wife.”

“I heard it.”

Willowyn smiled without mirth. “Was it a nice ceremony?”

“Excuse me?”

“The marriage. Was it nice.”

“We’re not—legally, we’re not…”

“Oh, that’s right. Goblins aren’t allowed to marry. That’d be like marryin dogs or lizards or sisters. Do you think I should be allowed to marry my sister?”

“No. Of, of course not.”

“Ah.” Willowyn turned to her sister. “The beast has standards when it suits him.” Back to the imp. “Tell me, blueboy: how’d you get off the tracks and on the train. I’m curious. Who’d you swindle? Who’d you kill?”

It was a thought on the entire car’s mind. What little conversation remained guttered out as they waited for the imp’s answer.

“No-nobody, I swear it. No swindle. No killing. I—my…”

“Hurry it, goblin.”

“My family. We—on the rails, the railwork, they give us a gold a week. My son died hammering spikes and his pay was left to me. My two daughters died. My wife was shot. All their gold came to me, and—and their belongings, which I traded for more coins. Except for the suit. I kept the suit.”

“Dung,” Willowyn said. “You killed em and took their golds, didn’t you?”

Anger glowered under the imp’s brow but he tucked it away quickly. I’ve come so far, he thought. I can’t die now.

“I killed no-one. I love my family. And now I’m going home. My debt to the rails is paid. My ticket’s paid. I don’t owe anymore.”

Willowyn plucked the cheroot from her sister’s mouth and took a puff. She considered what the imp had said, sucking the smoke deep into her lungs, tapping ash on the table. She streamed the smoke from her nose.

“You owe. Don’t you ever think you don’t. Your people took up arms against mine. You sided with the Great Evils. How much blood is on your little blue hands?”

“None,” the imp snapped, unable to hold his rage any longer. “None! That was generations ago. My hands are clean and my debts paid!”

Willowyn slammed the flat of her fist on the table. The silverware jumped and clattered. “Your debts are never paid, you hear me? Never. You’re an evil, brutal race—hatred of my kind will always run in your abominable veins. That’s why you’re slaves. You can never be trusted. Savages. You’re all savages.”

“Who’s the savage here?” The imp asked, nearly delirious with rage. “Who? The imp that worked honest for two years, or the woman that murdered honest workers?”

It was too much. Willowyn sprung upright and the silverware clattered and her fingers slapped leather, the revolver flashing from its holster and the click of the hammer coming back. The imp held the menu in front of his face like a pathetic shield, whimpering, waiting for the thunder and the darkness to follow it.

The thunder never came.

He peeked over the menu and saw the other ape-human, the quiet one with the cold pale eyes gripping her sister’s wrist, gently—yet firmly—halting her fire. The imp could not believe his eyes. It made no sense to him at all.

I should be dead, he thought. It should be getting black and I should smell the cordite biting my nose, like I’ve smelled it a thousand times before on the rails.

Sephony was shaking her head. “Not yet,” she said. “Let’s not kill for free, lest we’re forced.”

The words calmed Willowyn. She slumbered the gun and straightened her coat.

“This is pathetic,” she said while taking her seat. “I never thought I’d see the day you saved a goblin. If word gets out we’re finished. No one’ll want us stalking the tracks.”

“The railroad’s finished, Will. That work’s gone anyways.”

“Sure. But there’s a thing called honour, you know.” She turned to the imp. “That’s something you’d know precious little about.”

Says the murderer, the imp thought. He couldn’t wait till this trip was finished. By the Shaman’s beard, why’d he take the train?

Because there was no other choice, he told himself. There was bad business back home, he’d heard; the tribe was in danger. It was his duty as patriarch to return and defend his land from all invaders.

Hopefully he wasn’t too late.

It’s a long ride to Sadness, he thought.



The train squealed to a halt at TKR-27, the dilapidated station that sat on the outer edge of Khanduras. Only a few of the passengers dismounted; most would be riding on to Westmarch, where trade was good and the forests cut away and safe.

The sisters hopped from the open car to the platform, slinging their travelling packs over their shoulders and lighting smokes. The imp gave them a wide berth, quietly dragging his beaten pack across the platform and into the station.

“Gods,” Willowyn said. “All that sitting. My rump’s aching like a black tooth.”

Sephony nodded absently. She was watching the train lumber out of the station, coughing and sputtering dark smoke, clutching for speed. It was an ugly beast, this coal-fed contraption… but before long it would find its legs and whipcrack through the countryside, reaching speeds never thought possible before.

She did not fear the train like her sister. But it did fill her with a ghostly foreboding, the progress it implied, the steps taken forward that were perhaps steps taken away from them, far away. The rail stalking done; the money mostly gone. Would there be another job? Would the train speed away and take their livelihood with it?

No, Sephony thought. Train or not, there’ll always be killing work.

But would there? Before, a bounty could only run so far. More often than not they’d find their prey in the outskirts, trekking half-dead and worn-out, all the fight kicked out of him by hard travels. But now a bounty could just jump a train and coast to the far-reaches of the Kingdoms.

It was a problem she would have to ponder.

Willowyn pitched her smoke to the rails below. “Where’s the trotter? I gotta splash some pish.”

As Willowyn wandered off in search of an outhouse, Sephony leaned against a post and languidly finished her smoke. The land around the station was formless and ugly, still too close to the alkali flats to harbour much life: terse whorls of witchweed struggled from the parched earth; a few stunted trees, their bark gnarled and sunbleached, stood like skeletal claws.

I can’t wait to get to the woodlands, Sephony thought.

A legless man loped from the station on his hands. His clothes were filthy, mere rags. A faded insignia on his breast, a chewed army cap on his bald head. His eyes glimmered when he took sight of Sephony; he loped toward her.

“Missus! ‘Scuse me missus! Got a coin for a poor old footless sod?”

“A veteran, are you?”

“Thass correct, missus. Loss my legs in the Big Fight an’ I’ll never dance again. That’s a shame for an old vet innit? Spare a coin?”

She fished a gold from her pocket and flipped it in her palm. The man’s eyes followed the coin as it spun and flashed in the sun.

Sephony asked, “That the Territories War?”

“Yar, the Big Fight in thirty-three.”

“You fight for Khanduras?”

The man sneered and spat. “A-damn-course I did! Most glor’yus Kingdom of the three! I fought an’ loss my bloodthumpin legs an’ if I had another pair I’d give those too!”

Sephony closed her fist around the coin.

“Khanduras was the first to lay down, soldier. You lost your legs but kept your life. Your charity’s already been doled by the Gods.”

The man’s jaw worked spastically and the grimy cords in his neck bunched. “You bloodthumpin harlot! Your greed’ll be the death’a you!”

“The same can be said for yours. Now hobble off before I finish what Entsteig couldn’t.”

He would’ve protested but the harlot had a gun and slaughterhouse eyes. She was a hard one, he knew; he’d seen those eyes before, on the killingfields when the enemy rushed with his rifle belching smoke and the bayonet gleaming. If I had my legs, the man thought while loping away; ooooh if I had em, I’d kick that bloodhungry harlot right in'r scabby gulch an’ watch her whine an’ squeal.

She’ll get her payment, he thought. Ay she will.

Willowyn stepped out of the man’s way and gave him a rough kick in the rear. “Watch where you’re going, you old fool! Gods, let’s get back to proper civilization. I’ve a coach waiting for us out front.”

[Clarke667]

Chapter Two

Grimletter, chieftain of the Bloodmoon Clan, uncorked his wineskin. He drunk deep of it, careless of the wine that streamed down his muzzle and soaked his coarse fur. His eyes glittered in the firelight. His chipped horns gleamed.

“Yeh be a right lucky find, gully,” Grimletter said. “We’ll geh such a purty price fer yeh, one like yeh naa believe. Iss’t naa true, boys?”

Grunts of assent around the campfire. Ugly hulked shadows, the flameflash of ugly weapons.

Grimletter drained the wineskin and tossed it at the chained captive.“A right purty price. Settle Clan Bloodmoon fer generation.” He nodded to himself, his muzzle pulling back into a makeshift grin. It always pleased him to think of time, and how it moved on. He was a satyr, and like most of his kind, he measured success on an extremely long timeline.

Iss naa mah honour, he thought for the millionth time, but the Clan’s. Wi’ this gully, Ah kin gee the Clan thirty-year of prosper’ty.

Winds ushered through the night and billowed the tents. The leaves whipped on the dark trees and the fire glowered.

Half-man and half-goat, the satyrs were a race of nomads feared throughout the entire Western Kingdoms. Ages ago they ruled the plains and forests, but an Imperial crusade was waged against them and, though the kingdoms could never scourge their lands clean of the satyrs, they at least scattered the clans and loosened their grip on the ancestral territories. Now they roamed, their numbers few and their hatred great.

There were six of them around the fire. They were still in good spirits from the ambush and capture that had occurred hours before on Coach Road 5.

Chained to a tree, their semi-conscious prisoner struggled weakly. The chains clicked and rasped against each other.

It was a good hit, Grimletter had to admit. His boys had done their duties to the hilt, not a straggler or slacker among them. They waited in the brush by the road for the entire morning and most of the afternoon, swatting the flies with their tails and sweating under their patchwork armour. The boredom of it was crushing. They didn’t risk conversation, so each satyr was left to his own thoughts for small eternities until finally a coach crested the hill and the boys readied, their hooves digging in the gritty dirt, their scarred weapons ever so quietly unsheathed. But Grimletter smelled oil in the winds, oil and iron. The tinge of pounded brass.

At the last moment, he made the call. Geh back down, boys, he whispered. Thu’ve goh Thunderfingers.

Whaa? said the satyr at his side.

Thunderfingers, Grimletter repeated. Guns. Geh down; we let thuss ‘un pass.

His boys reluctantly agreed. The coach clacked and raddled by them and they waited for another two hours. But what was two hours to the generations?

Nuthin, he thought. Two hours be but a blink ’r a tear.

The next coach came. All Grimletter could smell was money.

They hit the coach fast and hard from both sides, three of his boys piking the driver and the guard riding shotgun, two slaughtering the horses before they could get the fear and bolt. The rest of them jumped the cab.

In the back was their prize. A human gilly of about sixteen in a fine silk robe, her skin healthy and bronze, auburn hair long and combed and clean. Grimletter could smell magicks on this gully-girl; he pulled his truncheon and rapped her over the head a few times until she stopped shrieking and passed out. It was close, he knew; if the young sorceress had called a spell they’d have been cooked meat. And there would’ve gone Clan Bloodmoon, a footnote in history instead of its glory, as he knew they would someday be.

By Andariel’s poisoned tits, Grimletter thought as he warmed his callused hands by the campfire, we be so close to greatness Ah kin taste it. We ransom the mage-gully ‘n Bloodmoon gaas down strong in history.

Per’vided she’s naa worth more dead.



The world came back to Marise in slow increments.

First came the cold. It was all around her, a funeral shroud; coldness like a kiss on her heart. Her marrow frozen, the bones around it glass. Phantom winds assailing her, her tongue an ice floe in the frosted sepulchre of her mouth.

Where am I?

Next came the pain, which negated any questions. The pain thumped in her swollen skull, shivered the glass of her bones. It was omnipresent—she couldn’t discern its origin or its extremities. It was pain, total and uniform, and Marise was a slave to it.

Last came the emptiness. It enslaved the pain.

After what seemed like an age of wandering in the dark wreck of her psyche, Marise’s eyes began to clear. The fractured prisms in her vision went about their slow work of cohering; shapes that were once mere blobs of grey gained definition and colour; it came to her, it was all coming back. She blinked once, twice, her eyelids like butterflies, a wet flutter every time she blinked. But it was coming back, her eyesight. The world around her was gaining.

She was nude and chained to an oak tree. The steel links crisscrossed her body, haphazard yet tight. When she shifted she could hear many locks clicking against the chains.

What’s happened to me?

A fire nearby. The orange flames dazzled her eyes and wormed into her skull, quickening her headache. The fire was relatively close to her, yet strangely she could feel no heat from it. Why am I so cold? she thought. It’s a summer night and there’s a fire; I shouldn’t be freezing this badly.

Marise looked down at her naked legs and found her answer. They were completely slicked in blood. The earth around her feet was dark and muddy.

“Thass right, gully,” a figure by the fire said. “We be draining yeh of the red juices. Stuck yeh in the womb, likes, so yeh won’t be doin’ none ‘a them magicks. Cain’t be doin’ magicks with naa blood, kin yeh?”

Fear slammed into her. Fear, and a curious mourning under it, a shallow slipstream of self-pity: My womb, she thought. They’ve damaged it. I’ll never mother.

And that may be the least of my problems.

The figure stood and stretched. Half obscured by the firelight, yet nonetheless she knew what he was. That miasma of rancid milk and wet fur, old meat and wine. A satyr. Goat-man.

Grimletter strode over to her with his giant poleaxe resting on his hairy shoulder. She saw that his eyes were as dark as pitch and his teeth were stained brown and maroon. The stench of him intensified until Marise thought she would either gag of pass out. She did neither.

“Yeh’r a Sister, eya? Do naa lie—Ah’ll chop yeh’r bits off faster’n the words fall from yeh’r godsrotting maw. Sister ‘a the Sightluss Eye, eya? Zann Esu. Eya?”

She managed to shudder open her mouth but no words came from it.

Enraged, Grimletter raised his poleaxe.

“Yuhhhh,” she croaked. “Yuhh-eee…”

The axeblade halted. “Was thut a yes?”

Marise nodded as vigorously as she could.

“Eya,” Grimletter said. The poleaxe fell back to his shoulder. “Good-good. We’re to geh much coin from yeh. Now: whaa was yeh doin’ on the coach? Where was yeh goin’?”

Marise tried to say ‘Sadness’ but couldn’t force it out.

Grimletter snorted. “Bah! Such an ugly thing yeh be. Weak ‘n godsrotting dumb. Humans!”

Grease-slick laughter from around the fire. Marise noticed—that seeing how she was so hideous to them—none of the goat-men would look at her for more than a moment before turning away in disgust. Except one. He had a broken horn and a craggy purple scar on his cheek; he was so drunk he was swaying in his seat; yet his eyes never faltered. He devoured her with them. He picked her bones clean.

He must be really tossed, she thought.

Grimletter slapped her mercilessly across the face. “D’naa look away from me!” He slapped her again and through the numbness and cold she could feel a distant burning. “When Ah speak yeh look to me! Eya? Eyyyya?”

She nodded before the next slap found its mark.

“Filthy godsrotting humans! Ah’ve enough ‘a thuss. Tent-time.” He faced his boys. “Who’s gaa first wartch?”

The goat with the broken horn waited the barest of moments before raising his arm.

“Mairzus, good boy ‘a mine. Naa too boggled, are yeh?”

“Naa Chieft’n.”

“Good-good. Wartch thuss ‘un till two screws ‘a the moon.”

“Eya Chieft’n.”

Grimletter lodged his blade into the tree by his tent. “Tent-time, boys. Keep the fire goin’ Mairzus, and wake the next boy at two screw.”

“Eya.”

They boys guzzled the last of their wine and filed off to their tents.

Soon there was silence. A knot popped in the fire and embers danced aerials to the dark canopy above. A male wendigo moaned in the distance, hoping to attract a mate.

Mairzus swayed and stared at Marise.

Marise stared back.

This might be a bad idea, a voice in her head warned her. Baiting him could be very unwise.

I know what I’m doing, she told the voice. Even in the confines of her head she didn’t sound confident.

“Whadder yeh lookinah?” His wine-limbered tongue mixed with his accent made him nearly unintelligible to Marise. She picked apart his words carefully and, damning caution, continued to stare. “Ahsedwhadderyehlookinah!” He snaked and fumbled from his seat and snaked and fumbled toward her, a broken mass of drunken rage, his pitch eyes glossed, his muzzle twitching a snarl. His fist sailed and tagged her across the chin and his raw knuckles split her lip and the other fist sailed but missed its target and thumped her on the shoulder. It still hurt. As Mairzus reared back for another punch gravity got the best of him and carried him down to the dirt where he flailed and flopped and clawed at her bloodslick legs; he got hold of a chain and steadied himself; got hold of another and began to climb himself up.

Face to face with the satyr, the stench was too much. Marise winced and her throat worked and bile rose up to the back of her teeth.

“Ah disgust yeh, do Ah? Ah smell too bad? Welly, yeh be smelling worst soon…”

Marise grit her teeth and closed her eyes as Mairzus reached into his pants and limbered himself. The stream splashed her legs and belly.

At least it’s warm, she thought.

“Now howdoyeh smell, eya?” He rubbed the urine into her wounds and the sting was incredible and she cried out. “Like that, do yeh?” He rubbed harder and harder. But his drunk logic flipped: he began to rub slower. He caressed her.

“Yeh’r such an ugly thing,” he said. His hand moved higher and squeezed the fullness of her breast. “Hid’yus. Dis-gus-tin’.”

Forcing away her loathing, Marise decided to plant the first hook in him.

“Please,” she cried. “Don’t. I’m still unsullied.”

“Ver-jin, be yeh? Unsullllllied? Welly, tonight yeh be right sullied.”

He yanked and pulled at the chains. “Godsrotting!” He searched quickly for the keys but his wine-fuelled lust overcame him and he pulled a hatchet from his belt and hacked the chains away.

When the last binding fell he dragged her by the hair and tossed her in the dirt. Concentrate, she thought as she writhed, concentrate. I’ve got to hurry before the others wake from the noise.

Mairzus straddled her. His head bobbed drunkenly, swivelled up to the sky. He scrunched his eyes and watched the stars, grinning, his teeth like broken pickets.

“Thuss be a sweet night,” he said.

“Yes,” Marise croaked. She lashed out, her arms feeling like jelly, her fingers wrapping around Mairzus’s neck. There was no way she could choke him—she was still very weak and Mairzus was a satyr, a race known for their hardiness. But luckily that was not her intention.

When Marise was unconscious the goat-men had stabbed her womb and bled her because it was commonly known that a sorceress could not cast magicks while drained of blood. But this was not entirely true: a loss of blood muddled the brain and only made a casting much harder to perform. Though certainly not impossible.

Concentrate, she repeated to herself. She only had a scant few moments before Mairzus pried her fingers from his neck. Turn your head. Look at the campfire. Concentrate. Concentrate on the fire. Feel its heat wash over you, feel it in your veins. The heat burning up your arms, concentrate on it, burning your wrists and your fingers and and and

The perfection came to her. Mairzus’s head burst into flames.

[RevenantsKnight]

So any thoughts, comments, questions, rants, raves and/or musings would be greatly appreciated. Seriously. Go ****ing nuts.

And so I shall...my first thought with this was that you shouldn’t make this Diablo. As I’ve mentioned to other folks, I personally think of Diablo as a medieval fantasy world only. Therefore, whenever someone changes the setting on me, parts of the story (the game history references in particular) just clank around in my mind. Now, I’m not saying that you can’t have goblins, etc. in this; I’d just rewrite it into your own universe if possible. It can resemble the Diablo world on some points, and be a mix of higher technology and magic, but just taking Blizzard’s setting wholesale and then advancing it far into the future doesn’t do it for me.

Overall, this looks promising. It’s not as heavy on the description as your last piece, though what’s there is generally good, and I can’t tell whether or not you skimped a little too much. Personally, I wouldn’t mind a little more imagery, so long as you don’t double or triple it up on the same thing. Your characters are interesting so far, and believable. The difference between Sephony and Willowyn in particular is nice; I’ll elaborate on this later. So, without further ado, here are some specific thoughts on your story:

I’m just gonna wing it and post two chapters a day. This can be stepped up (or down) upon request.

I’d slow it down a bit if you want feedback on all of it. Personally, I can usually get to one chapter per day, two if I’m lucky, and that’s assuming other people don’t post things. If you don’t mind that, well, then, let ‘em rip, but in terms of usable revision advice, you’ll get more from me at a slower pace.

Inevitability had come to her. Funny how that happened, sometimes; inevitability like a marker on the horizon, every day getting a bit closer, the marker bigger and bigger until you’re forced to lay your hands on it.

Umm...something inevitable may appear, but I don’t know if people come upon the idea of inevitability itself. I guess this is a stylistic call, but I’m not sure if this works as well as it could.

The imps sweating and falling to their bony knees and so many of them just keeling over and dying by the rails.

This sentence doesn’t sound right to me; maybe if you added something like “They remembered” at the start, it would read better. Or then again, maybe not...

The meal-car was long and spacious, filled with tables and the tables filled with men in fine suits and women in gowns, their sleeves of their gowns frilled, ivory canes and coloured parasols leaning against their chairs.

I’d change that part in the middle to read “in gowns with frilly sleeves” or something to that effect, because it feels verbose to have a whole clause to convey that idea.

The smells of meat and corn and coffee, fresh fruit and milk.

I don’t think this fragment works stylistically, since the rest of the paragraph’s a general third-person narration with complete sentences, not what a character’s experiencing firsthand.

Unperturbed, Sephony reached into her vest and checked her platinum timepiece. She knew what they were looking at: the Archangel .45 slung low and deadly on her hip, the roundnosed bullets winking in the loops on her belt. Gun-iron always sent a shiver up a plutocrat’s spine, especially when they were locked on a train with nowhere to hide.

Willowyn glared openly at them. Her hand never fell to her matching Archangel, but they could see it in her eyes, how she wanted to slap leather and fan hammer.

Well, the Isadora sisters (if that’s still who they are) are distinct individuals this time, and I think I like this better than having them as two representations of the same idea. This way, they do seem much more believable and human, especially when you start playing them off each other.

Her nostrils oculated.

Umm...the verb “to oculate” means “To set eyes upon; to see, behold,” according to the online version of the Oxford English Dictionary. Given that, I don’t think this works.

In his booth, the small imp was propped on a pile of books and his thin legs dangled under the table...

The whole scene with the imp and the sisters is good, I think, insofar as it develops Willowyn’s character. However, Sephony doesn’t really appear much here; is that deliberate, as in a sort of silent (dis)approval? If that was your intention, you might want to drop a couple more hints to that effect, because I didn’t pick up on that sort of thing when I read this.

He peeked over the menu and saw the other ape-human, the quiet one with the cold pale eyes gripping her sister’s wrist, gently—yet firmly—halting her fire. The imp could not believe his eyes. It made no sense to him at all.

Sephony was shaking her head. “Not yet,” she said. “Let’s not kill for free, lest we’re forced.”

Again, there aren’t enough bits prior to this to really indicate Sephony’s motive here. I can guess at why she did this, but with a few extra details thrown in, I could get a much stronger sense of her character.

She was a hard one, he knew; he’d seen those eyes before, on the killingfields when the enemy rushed with his rifle belching smoke and the bayonet gleaming.

I’ve always seen “killing fields” spelled as two words, not one.

He drunk deep of it, careless of the wine that streamed down his muzzle and soaked his coarse fur.

I think that should be “drunk deeply from it,” since “deeply” modifies the action of drinking, and one usually drinks from a vein...I mean, from a cup, or a glass, or a stream, or whatever. Also, I'd change "careless" to "heedless"; it's a minor point, but it works better in my mind if you're planning to use the preposition "of" afterwards.

He was a satyr, and like most of his kind, he measured success on an extremely long timeline.

I’d see if you can’t describe Grimletter’s race without saying straight up that “he was a satyr.” As it is, it sounds maybe too matter-of-fact.

Winds ushered through the night and billowed the tents.

The verb “to usher” usually takes an object, so I’d recommend finding a different verb here.

Half-man and half-goat, the satyrs were a race of nomads feared throughout the entire Western Kingdoms. Ages ago they ruled the plains and forests, but an Imperial crusade was waged against them and, though the kingdoms could never scourge their lands clean of the satyrs, they at least scattered the clans and loosened their grip on the ancestral territories.

Again, this sounds too factual to me, though maybe there isn’t a better way to get this information across. Also, I’d change “an Imperial crusade was waged against them” to something like “crusading Imperial forces had bested them in numerous battles” to get rid of the passive voice there. That doesn’t work word for word, obviously, but hopefully you get what I’m trying to say here.

First came the cold. It was all around her, a funeral shroud; coldness like a kiss on her heart. Her marrow frozen, the bones around it glass. Phantom winds assailing her, her tongue an ice floe in the frosted sepulchre of her mouth.

This is one of the few points in this piece where you approach the sledgehammer-like use of description common in your previous story, and my comment here is the same as it was then: this seems excessive. I’d say that you got your point across in the first two sentences; the third was OK, but extraneous, and I was waiting for the plot to get moving again by the fourth.

He snaked and fumbled from his seat and snaked and fumbled toward her, a broken mass of drunken rage, his pitch eyes glossed, his muzzle twitching a snarl. His fist sailed and tagged her across the chin and his raw knuckles split her lip and the other fist sailed but missed its target and thumped her on the shoulder.

I don’t know if the verb repetition here was intended for stylistic reasons or just a slip of the mind, but I don’t think it works. For me, it just messed up the flow of your story and reminded me, “Oh yeah, I should comment on this story sometime.”

The perfection came to her. Mairzus’s head burst into flames.

The similarities between the two names made my initial reading of this sentence much...weirder than it really had to be. You might want to change one of those names...

Anyway, this looks good so far. Thanks for posting!

[Clarke667]

Revenantsknight…

You know, I’m beginning to think I can count on you to give a hit-by-hit, error-by-error account of just about anything I write. Which, by the way, rocks. Thanks a heap for taking a few minutes to jot down a laundry list of your thoughts, much appreciated.

...my first thought with this was that you shouldn’t make this Diablo.

I know how you feel. When something is brought too far from its original element, it sort of becomes an exercise in pointlessness: why have it take place in some pre-made universe when you’re basically going to abandon it and craft your own? So yeah, totally agree with you there. But, bare in mind—what you’ve read is just the two first chapters. I’d rather not give anything away (and if you plan on reading the rest of it, I doubt you’d want me to, either), so I’ll just say that perhaps the Diablo universe comes into sharper relief later on.

I’d slow it down a bit if you want feedback on all of it.

Good idea. The last thing I wanna do is overwhelm you poor folks. One chapter a day it is.

The whole scene with the imp and the sisters is good, I think, insofar as it develops Willowyn’s character. However, Sephony doesn’t really appear much here; is that deliberate, as in a sort of silent (dis)approval? If that was your intention, you might want to drop a couple more hints to that effect, because I didn’t pick up on that sort of thing when I read this.

Oh ye of little faith. Seriously though, I purposely made Sephony silent through that scene, and kept her reasoning for not killing the imp ambiguous. At this point in the game, I felt she shouldn’t lay down all her cards just yet. But thanks for the heads-up, maybe I’ll add a line or two where Willowyn becomes frustrated with her sister’s taciturnity.

This is one of the few points in this piece where you approach the sledgehammer-like use of description

You cruel bastard. Cruel, but most likely right.

The similarities between the two names made my initial reading of this sentence much...weirder than it really had to be.

Ha! That would’ve made for a pretty bizarre plot-twist. But hey, maybe in the next draft I can have her light her hair on fire and headbutt the satyr to death. The scene could then go down as the ultimate description of “out of left field”.

Out of left field -- Eccentric, odd; also, mistaken. For example: lighting one’s own head aflame in order to attack a goat. See also, bad acid trip.

Thanks for reading.

[RevenantsKnight]

I’d rather not give anything away (and if you plan on reading the rest of it, I doubt you’d want me to, either), so I’ll just say that perhaps the Diablo universe comes into sharper relief later on.

Hmm...should be interesting to see what you do with Blizzard's world, then.

Seriously though, I purposely made Sephony silent through that scene, and kept her reasoning for not killing the imp ambiguous. At this point in the game, I felt she shouldn’t lay down all her cards just yet. But thanks for the heads-up, maybe I’ll add a line or two where Willowyn becomes frustrated with her sister’s taciturnity.

Ah. I had a similar line of reasoning for Farewell, and then neoplatonic dropped by the thread and hinted that I should develop a certain character more. I believe his exact quote was "Every action has to reveal character," and that was on my mind when I read your piece. In retrospect, it's probably not as much of a problem if this story goes on for a while, so add extras if you want; they're probably not necessary per se.

You cruel bastard.

Awww...that hurt right *here* :( Seriously, though, let me know if I'm being too evil.

Ha! That would’ve made for a pretty bizarre plot-twist. But hey, maybe in the next draft I can have her light her hair on fire and headbutt the satyr to death.

Yeah...my original guess was that she had succeeded in doing some sort of fire elemental shapeshifting spell. That or you were being darkly sarcastic about her screwing up the attack.

Thanks for reading.

My pleasure.

[Clarke667]

Awww...that hurt right *here* Seriously, though, let me know if I'm being too evil.

Equally seriously, you're not. I was just kidding... well, kidding-ish. Fact is, I'm posting here because I want honest criticism; I'd be a bit of a baby if I said, "I want to know what you really think, unless you disagree with what I think."

A pat on the back is nice, but sometimes a punch in the mouth is more effective.

So as long as it's contructive, and (though cruel and brutal are fine) not totally mean-spirited... well, ****, fire away.

[Clarke667]

Chapter Three

The local historian was a notorious drunkard, tosspot first-class. He was a red-nosed imbiber of ale and rum and wine, a backslapper, a pincher of bottoms, a barley cloud of jollity and well-wishes; this bothered some, since he was supposed to be the town’s intellectual, and to have him rolling in cups five nights a week was a mild embarrassment. Others didn’t much care. He was a good-natured sod, and even in the depths of his rum-hazes he never raised a fist or spat a curse. Not only that, but even in spite of his raging nights and crushing mornings, he still managed to somehow get the work done.

When properly inebriated, the historian was known to say that no town was more aptly named than Sadness.

“We’ve had the baddest of times,” he would say, usually stopping to raise his mug at a patron in celebration, or motioning to the barkeep for another round. “Baddest of the bad. We sawd the terror twice in Sadness, ay. Our history’s painted black with it.

“First was the deal with Lazarus and the catercombs,” he would say, as if anyone knew what he was jabbering about. “Dark times in the church, which has since been razed and flattened and buried and forgotten. I’ll show you the site sometime, you’ll get a right kick from it. That’s where the wanderer battled the Lord of Terror.

“A sad story,” he would intone. “Ay, so very sad. ‘Nother round on the tab?” The barkeep had no doubt heard the tale a thousand times before, but the historian had the gift of tongues and his too-old voice was soothing; on most nights the barkeep would honour the tab.

“Next came the Reckoning. Our town was killed by the Lord of Terror for what we had done to him, and most everyone was slaughtered. Some escaped the Reckoning, though, and my greatest of great-great grandfather was held captive and later freed. He was the one who eventually came back and re-founded the town, about a mile and a half from the original. You’re all welcome.

“Some of the ruins still stand, you know. It’s the place we call Rockswoon, and as we all know, it’s a bad place. Ghosts and such. I went there to mark the site of the forgotten church and even during the bright of the day I could feel it. The earth there was black, and so were the trees, and they wept slowly.

“We’ve had the baddest of times, no?” the historian would say, nodding to himself, draining his mug in silence.

No one had seen the historian for going on two weeks now. He was gone like the rest of them, presumed dead. Hopefully dead.

Sadness was seeing bad times again.



The dusty coach shambled into Sadness by late morning. The horses were muddy and tired; after a long hold-up in the forest (caused by a broken wheel), the driver had been offered double-pay to get his passengers to the town as quick as possible, and to insure this bonus the driver had to whip the horses into a forced-trot for the rest of the trip. It was a gamble, he knew; if the horses died from exhaustion the bonus wouldn’t even cover the cost. But it looked like the gods were favouring him today. Lucky, lucky.

He bridled the coach over to the nearest inn, The Morning Rain.

“Here we are,” the driver called over his shoulder. “The Morning Rain’s prob’ly the best bed in Sadness. They got harlots, though, if that bothers ye; but they also got a decent breakfast and a bath. That to your satisfaction?”

“It’ll do,” Willowyn said, climbing out the cab. She tossed the driver a pouch of coins as her sister dismounted and dusted her sleeves.

The driver pulled the string on the pouch. “It’s all there,” Willowyn said.

“Ay, yarse, of course.” He didn’t push it. He tucked the coins in his coat. “Oldish habit. You know us drivers. Unruly lot we are. Sods all.”

One of the horses stumbled and whinnied pathetically. “Ey Carmin?” the driver said to it, and the horse fell to a knee and jittered and then toppled over in a spume of dust. The coach listed on two wheels and the driver clung to the reins to keep from keeling over the side. “Godsrottit!” He scramble-climbed to the fore and unhooked the binds and the coach righted itself with a thump. “Godsrottit to the ninth sphere of Hell!”

Sephony placed a hand on the fallen horse.

“Still breathin?” the driver asked.

“Yes,” Sephony said. She stood. “I’ll care for it.”

The Archangel loosed from her side. She pulled back the hammer with her thumb. When the judgement came the horse’s scream was swallowed by the declaration and all passers-by stopped and gaped. Shooting-iron. A rare-ish sight in these parts.

“Carmin, Carmin,” the driver said.

The sisters left the driver to his ill-fortune. In The Morning Rain, they bought a room and paid for a week up front. Patrons and harlots and harlotmongers watched them covertly.

“Have some cold coffee sent up to the room,” Willowyn said. Most people thought cold coffee tasted like sludge but the sisters had gotten used to it on their long journeys and ambushes.

The room was small and ugly but clean, a soft bed and a sturdy dresser and a claw-footed tub. A round table in the corner, two chairs. A window and a heavy blind.

They tossed their packs in the corner and draped their coats over the chairs.

“When they come with the coffee tell ‘em to get buckets for the bath,” Willowyn said. She sat on the edge of the bed and yanked off her boots. “Ugh. Tell em to hurry with the buckets. My paws reek.”

Sephony had to agree.

“So,” Willowyn said while fanning her feet with her hat, “think there’s coin here?”

“That’s what they’ve been sayin. We’ll visit the keeper after supper, see what we can eek out.”

“Good. We’re running frightful low on cashes.”

“Ay,” Sephony said, tasting the regional term on her tongue. She would have the accent down in a day or so, and the cadence in another. A familiar voice could do wonders in a small town.

A well-groomed porter came with the coffee and Sephony paid him and requested the buckets. They sipped the coffee and waited and filled the tub with steaming water when it came, Willowyn undressing and settling in the tub, still sipping her coffee, relaxing and sunshafts from the window falling on her face and chest. She touched her neck, feeling the chequered kerchief there. She untied it and tossed it on the pile, revealing a half-collar of pink scar.

She asked Sephony to get the bar of yellow soap she carried in her pack; she scrubbed the grime from her feet and arms.

Sephony rang for the porter. “Another few buckets,” she told him. “And a bottle of rum. And get a harlot up here, too. A pretty one.”

The porter looked dumbfounded. He glanced over Sephony’s shoulder and saw the nude woman bathing in the tub. Sephony tucked a few coins in his vest-pocket. “Keep it quiet, too. Ay?”

He nodded feebly. “Ay.”

Sephony closed the door.

“I ordered us some rum. And a prostitute.”

“You what?”



Downstairs, the porter discreetly explained the situation to the desk manager. She was a woman of about fifty with cyclone hair and too much makeup. The makeup twitched as she gaped in astonishment.

“The two women just came in? They want a harlot?”

“Ay.”

“What do they think this is? We’re The Morning Rain! We’re respectable!”

“Ay.”

“We can’t be having this. No, no, no. Go back up there and tell them to clear the room and find some other hovel more appropriate to their, their deviations.”

The porter blanched. He stutterwalked a foot, then abruptly halted.

“Gods, what is it?”

“They… they’re gunners ma’am. They’ll blow me out my boots.”

The desk manager tapped her long crimson nails on the counter. “Perhaps they won’t,” she said. “You might see this one through. Now get.”

He stuttered and stopped again. “The gunners,” he said, “they’ve got coin, coin a’plenty.” He didn’t want to show her the tip he’d received but he wagered the gold was worth less than his life. He slid the gold across the table and it vanished under the desk manager’s long nails.

“A’plenty, you say?”

“Ay.”

The desk manager shook her head slowly, lost in thought. “Mr Tanner’s not gonna like this. No, this’ll put a quillrat in his trousers. Rich, are they?”

“Ay.”

“You want your life so bad, you talk to Mr Tanner. He’s only marginally less apt to steal it, though. And charge them gunners double and get me a cut of it.”

He considered it. “Ay,” he said.



As it turned out, Mr Tanner, Harlotmaster for The Morning Rain, didn’t have much of a problem with the request. On another day he would’ve; he would’ve thumped the porter and then stomped up to the room and thumped the gunners too. But ever since the bad came to Sadness, business was trickle-drip slow, and he needed the extra gold. Prostitution was a high-upkeep field; you had to feed the harlots and room the harlots and even pay the harlots every once and a while. And they were always getting strangled or ruined, so once a month he had to buy fresh ones for the corral.

Even so, he might not have agreed. Even at double rate he might not’ve been able to cover the costs; if word got out that one of his girl was tainted by impure relations, he would have to cut her loose and buy a clean one from the skin traders.

But it just so happened that luck had finally tumbled his way.

Just this morning he purchased a girl from a hunter at a fifth of the price. Apparently he was out bagging windego for meat and fur (their coats especially luxurious during rutting season) when he came across her lying in a ditch, filthy and naked and blood-strewn. He gave her some water and wrapped her in one of the fresh pelts he’d bagged and tossed her in his cart. When his work was over the girl was still alive, so he brought her to Tanner on the way to market.

“She’s a cute one, idn’t she?” the hunter said.

“Cute, ay, but a bit young and damaged. Look the scars on her belly. No one wants to bounce a scarred up harlot.”

“Use her fer whatever, then. Twenny… twenny-fi’ gold.”

“You said twenty.”

And the deal was done and Tanner immediately regretted it. Maybe the girl could clean the trotters or something; wash out the harlots’ bits when they got infected.

But now he had a good use for her. She was damaged anyways—might as well cash in and put her down afterwards.



Sephony baled most of the filthy water out of the window and refilled the tub. “The rum?” she asked and the porter set the bottle on the table. “And the harlot?” He reached out the door and guided her into the room. She was wearing a plain cotton robe and her eyes were huge and fearful and her face was bruised like an apple.

“A bit young, isn’t she?” Sephony said.

“She’s old enough,” the porter said. “Her price is sixty gold.”

“Sixty!” Willowyn said while towelling her hair. She somehow managed to glare at her sister and the porter and the harlot, all for different reasons.

“That’s far too much,” Sephony said. “Look at her. She’s young and she’s bruised up and I smell blood on her. Sixty is ludicrous.”

“That’s the price.”

“That’s robbery. We each took the train for thirty gold and that was a five- hour ride. What can this girl offer?”

“Discretion.”

“Dung on discretion,” Willowyn said. “Give us a fair shake or I’ll blast you six new smoking arseholes.”

The porter gulped but stood firm.

“Thirty,” Sephony said. “Or I leave you to my sister and you’ll never see another rainbow. That would be a terrible shame.”

“Truly,” Willowyn said.

The porter hesitated. “Fifty.”

“Thirty-five.”

“Fifty.”

“Forty, and I give you twenty seconds to run before I shoot you in the back.”

It was a good offer, he reckoned. “Deal.”

He took the money and left the fearful girl to fend for herself, scurrying down the hall and wondering how he would make up the other twenty and save his life from Mr Tanner. And then he would have to cover the desk manager’s cut as well.

What a terrible day.

Sephony closed the door and began to unbutton her shirt.

“You can’t be serious,” Willowyn said.

“Serious about what?”

“This.”

“This? I don’t know what ‘this’ is, at least to you.” She laid out her shirt on the bed. There was an ugly pink scar on her side. “This is me getting ready to take a bath. This is me looking for a knife so I can shave my legs; it’s a forest down there. And this is me about to drink some rum and have a smoke, and this little harlot here is gonna talk. In a town like this, no one knows more’n a harlot, ay? A bed is where a man lays his secrets bare.”

She tossed her skivvies and stepped into the bath.

“What’s your name?”

“Marise.”

“Get the rum, Marise. Pour me a finger.”

Marise did as she was asked, her hands trembling, a bit of the rum splashing onto the table. “Sorry,” she said, thinking, This is bad. Very bad. Should I kill them now or should I take my chances and wait?

Sephony sipped her drink and lathered her leg with soap. “So what can you tell us, Marise? What’s going on here, exactly?” As an afterthought: “And for forty gold it better be good.”

Willowyn sat crossleg on the bed with the towel wrapped around her hair. She laid another towel on the bed and began breaking down her .45. She had a kit by her side with brushes and jags and swatches of dirty cloth and oil droppers. As Marise spoke she could hear the clicking and ticking of gunworks behind her.

“I—I’m not a harlot.”

“Don’t feed me that tripe,” Sephony said. She flicked open her trail-knife and ran it skilfully down her lathered leg. She shucked the foam and hair into an empty bucket. “We’re not gonna have at you. We want information, and maybe a backrub, seeing how we’re paying you so much. Actually, get to that. My shoulders’re awful tense.”

Marise walked behind Sephony and carefully laid hands on the woman’s shoulders. I can light her up like Mairzus, she thought. The other one’s got her gun broken down; she’ll never snap it back together in time. But… As she worked out Sephony’s knots, she ticked an eye to Willowyn. She saw another gun lying holstered by the foot of the bed. Still pretty far away. But if these girls are really assassin then she might be able to get to it and punch a hole in me.

“Well?” Sephony said.

Think, think.

“I’m not a harlot, I swear. I’m a slave.”

Willowyn said, “There’s a difference?”

“Today—Today yes, there’s a difference.”

Sephony considered this. Her face was impassive but underneath she was being gnawed by apprehension. She studied Marise as best she could without alerting her. She noted the texture of Marise’s hands; the nervous lilt of her voice; her smell.

Her smell.

Sephony nodded near imperceptibly to Willowyn.

“Why, pray-tell, is there a difference today?”

Before Marise could answer Sephony was twisting out of the tub with the trail-knife to Marise’s throat and pushing against her and knocking her down, pinning her and the knife never wavering and Willowyn off the bed with her sister’s .45 cocked and a split-moment later the Archangel’s black dead eye pressing against Marise’s forehead. Soap and water drenched her robe as Sephony straddled her with the blade forced cruelly against her skin.

“Zann Esu,” Sephony hissed through her teeth. “You’re caught cold sorceress; the merest hint of trickery and we’ll paint the floor with you.”

“Are you hired?” Willowyn asked. “Who paid you for our heads?”

“No! No one, I swear!”

“Demonpiss! Was it Trans-Kingdom?”

“I’m not hired! I’m—I, I…” The fear broke inside her and she wept.

“Gods,” Willowyn said. “I’m feeding this dogswallowing fool a bullet.”

“No! Please, please, I can help you! I have information! Please!”

The sisters shared a glance.

“You have two minutes,” Sephony said. “Start at the very beginning.”

“I—can you get off my chest? I can barely—”

Sephony jabbed Marise in the neck with the tip of the knife. It was a shallow puncture; a line of blood trickled from it.

“Minute and a half.”

Marise spoke quickly. She told him how Exalted Mother had ordered her to Sadness to investigate the disappearances. “What disappearances?” Sephony asked, and Marise told her that twenty had vanished in the night without a trace and that, before darkness broke to dawn, a chorus of screams could be heard on the winds. She told them of her capture by the goat-men, and her escape.

“Torched his head, did you?” Sephony said. The two minutes were up yet the killing had not come.

“Yes. He screamed and his face melted and I pushed him with my mind, sent him reeling back into the tents. They went up like kindling, all smoke and flame, and I scrambled to my feet and ran and ran, in the dark. After I don’t know how long, I started to get dizzy, terrible dizzy, and sick. I think I tripped and knocked my head. In the morning a hunter found me and brought me to town and sold me off.”

“Don’t be so bitter. He could have left you.”

“Or he could have helped me.”

“He did. You expect too much of people. He gave more kindness than I’d ever give.”

That didn’t sit well with Marise. She swallowed and the knife poked her gullet.

Sephony told Willowyn, “I’m naked and I’m cold. Keep a bead on her while I towel and dress.” She slapped the knife closed and tossed it on the bed. She went about her business.

“Reassemble my iron while you’re at it.”

“Can’t. You’ve broke it down too far.”

“Bah. You should learn the ways of a gun before you ever squeeze the trigger.”

As a rebuttal, Sephony belched.

“Charming. Now what’re we gonna do with the harlot?”

“Send her back to the corral.”

“No, please—”

The gun pressed against her cheek. “Hush. You’re coming out of this with your life, and many a woman’s made a good life on her back. It’s nothing to be extremely ashamed of.”

“I can’t. Please. They won’t keep me. They’ll kill me.”

Sephony straightened her cuffs. “Kill them, then. Why is this so difficult? Rain fire and judgement down on them.”

“It’s against the Order. I can’t do it. Please help me. I’ll—I know more.”

“Oh?”

“I know where to look for the Darkness.”

“Where?”

“I’ll tell you if you free me.”

“No. You’ll tell us now.”

“I won’t.”

Willowyn said, “We can make you tell us.”

“No, not today. I’ve nothing left but that. It’s all I have over you and you won’t steal it with torture.”

Willowyn smiled.

“I don’t believe you.”

Slowly, slowly, Marise walked over to the table. With each step the gun pressed harder in her cheek. “What do you think you’re doing, you imp fornicator?” Willowyn hissed, and slowly, slowly, Marise placed her left hand on the table and splayed her fingers.

“Which one do you want?” Marise asked.

“We’ll take all of them if it’s our pleasure.”

Fully dressed, Sephony was knelt-over and rooting in her pack. “Now, now,” she said, “that’s not fair.” She removed a small hatchet and tested the edge with her thumb. Razor-sharp.

“It’s your bequest, Marise,” Sephony said. “You choose.”

Willowyn said, “We’re not bluffing, you know.”

“I know. Neither am I.” Oh by the Sightless Eye what are you doing? “The little finger. Take that one.”

Sephony placed the cold blade on the skin. Willowyn held the wrist. Her grip was like an iron bar.

“Last chance,” Sephony said.

Marise held her tongue. And her breath.

The hatchet ascended. The sunlight caught the steel and burnished it and motes danced around it. It came down in a white flash. Marise sucked more air into her bloated lungs and her head rang and buzzed and the blade stopped a quarter-inch from her finger.

Sephony looked at her. “Kidding.”

Marise exhaled and nearly collapsed. Willowyn held her, laughing.

Sephony laughed as well. “Actually… No, I’m not.”

The hatchet was up and back down before Marise could register what had occurred and her little finger jumped across the table with a tail of blood and the pain shot up her arm and exploded in her head, tearing her brain to pieces, the agony of it, her fingerstump sputtering red and she was screaming, shrieking, thrashing; Willowyn flung her against the wall and the bed rattled and Willowyn kicked her in the stomach and the screams and shrieks rushed out of her, all at once, the blood painting roses on her cotton robe.

Sephony tossed Marise her finger. “Better concentrate,” she said.

Insane with pain and terror, Marise jammed the finger on the stump, feeling the bones grind together, the acid sting of raw flesh like a million wasps, her hands red gloves. She mewled and cried. “Concentrate,” Sephony said and her hand lashed out and gripped Marise’s throat. Like her sister, Sephony’s hand was an iron bar. The air died at the back of Marise’s throat.

“I gave you two minutes before. Now I’m giving you two more. Two minutes before you pass out and die, Marise. This is the rest of your life. Now concentrate. Will yourself to fix or die like a dog.”

Marise gazed dumbly at her hand. It looked far too big. It took up her entire field of vision; the hand would come and engulf her face and that would be her death, a palm-blessing, a blackness smelling of copper and salt and meat.

She fumbled the severed finger. Somehow the bone-ends clicked into place.

The perfection came to her. A band of whiteness covered the wound, perfect whiteness. It burned pleasantly, and her finger was warmed by it. She could feel it. Her finger twitched.

Sephony released her grip.

“Now,” she said, “what aren’t you telling us?”

Marise fell over and coughed. Retched. She battled for consciousness.

“Which… do you want next?” Marise asked, and splayed her bloody fingers on the floorboards.

This time, Sephony’s laugh was genuine.

[RevenantsKnight]

This was another good read, no doubt about it; you most definitely still have my attention. The end felt a little uneven, as if you had an idea but didn’t quite get all of it down, but other than that, this was strong.

Comments on Chapter Three:

He was a red-nosed imbiber of ale and rum and wine, a backslapper, a pincher of bottoms, a barley cloud of jollity and well-wishes; this bothered some, since he was supposed to be the town’s intellectual, and to have him rolling in cups five nights a week was a mild embarrassment.

I’d suggest a period instead of a semicolon here; the shift between the two sentences would be best noted with a full stop, in my opinion.

He was a good-natured sod, and even in the depths of his rum-hazes he never raised a fist or spat a curse. Not only that, but even in spite of his raging nights and crushing mornings, he still managed to somehow get the work done.

Given the first sentence here, “raging nights” seems too...aggressive.

No one had seen the historian for going on two weeks now. He was gone like the rest of them, presumed dead. Hopefully dead.

Heh...it’s probably a good thing for him, if you think about what Willowyn might do to him if she got annoyed. Anyway, I thought this whole bit was a good way to start out this chapter, slow and easy in contrast to what happens later. But then again, I write only slow prose, so maybe that’s just me.

The horses were muddy and tired; after a long hold-up in the forest (caused by a broken wheel), the driver had been offered double-pay to get his passengers to the town as quick as possible, and to insure this bonus the driver had to whip the horses into a forced-trot for the rest of the trip.

That should be “ensure,” not “insure.”

He didn’t push it. He tucked the coins in his coat.

I’d suggest combining these two sentences into something like “He didn’t push it, and tucked the coins into his coat” in order to eliminate the repetition of “he” (unless that was intentionally done to focus attention on the driver.)

When the judgement came the horse’s scream was swallowed by the declaration and all passers-by stopped and gaped.

“Rain fire and judgement down on them.”

That should be “judgment.”

“Carmin, Carmin,” the driver said.

Since you don’t spend any other sentences on the driver’s reaction (which is fine,) I’d use a more descriptive verb to get a little bit more of an image across. “Said” is just too bland if you’re leaving it to stand alone here.

The sisters left the driver to his ill-fortune.

I don’t think “ill fortune” is hyphenated.

“That’s what they’ve been sayin. We’ll visit the keeper after supper, see what we can eek out.”

I think you mean “eke out,” which is defined as “to supplement, supply the deficiencies of anything” (definition from the online version of the Oxford English Dictionary.)

“Ay,” Sephony said, tasting the regional term on her tongue. She would have the accent down in a day or so, and the cadence in another. A familiar voice could do wonders in a small town.

This stood out in my mind as a particularly elegant bit of phrasing.

They sipped the coffee and waited and filled the tub with steaming water when it came, Willowyn undressing and settling in the tub, still sipping her coffee, relaxing and sunshafts from the window falling on her face and chest.

The “and” after “relaxing” should be “as,” or something like that; since “relaxing” isn’t parallel with “sunshafts” (they aren’t both verbs in the gerund form,) “and” doesn’t sound right as a conjunction.

[Willowyn] untied it and tossed it on the pile, revealing a half-collar of pink scar.

There was an ugly pink scar on [Sephony’s] side.

Oddly familiar, that...

She asked Sephony to get the bar of yellow soap she carried in her pack; she scrubbed the grime from her feet and arms.

This seems extraneous and didn’t flow as well from the previous paragraph or to the next one; I’d recommend deleting it altogether if you don’t mind leaving the reader to assume a few things.

“Mr Tanner’s not gonna like this.”

There should be a period at the end of “Mr.,” and for any other contraction of a title, such as Ms., Mrs., Cmdr., etc.

But ever since the bad came to Sadness, business was trickle-drip slow, and he needed the extra gold.

“The bad?” I guess it’s a stylistic call, but I didn’t think that worked as well as, say, “bad times” would’ve.

Apparently he was out bagging windego for meat and fur (their coats especially luxurious during rutting season) when he came across her lying in a ditch, filthy and naked and blood-strewn.

In the game, I think the monster name is “wendigo.” This is an instance where it works just fine to borrow a detail; as long as you don’t capitalize it and then add that they’re immune to Cold on Hell difficulty, it won’t stick out. Additionally, I think you’re missing a “were” or a “being” after “coats,” and “blood-strewn” looked a little odd at first glance to me, though I did get what you were trying to say.

She was wearing a plain cotton robe and her eyes were huge and fearful and her face was bruised like an apple.

I could be wrong, but “was wearing” seems incorrect to me...I’d change that to “wore.” In general, I have no real problem with your use of “and” to chain together descriptive phrases; that’s a stylistic thing and really your own decision. However, I do think that some variety in terms of sentence structure might be good at times. For instance, the above sentence could be rewritten as “She wore a plain cotton robe, her eyes huge and bright, her face bruised like an apple.”

She had a kit by her side with brushes and jags and swatches of dirty cloth and oil droppers.

Here’s the only time that I noticed where your use of “and” makes things a little ambiguous; as it is above, it sounds like there were swatches of both dirty cloth and oil droppers. You could leave it alone, since it’s not a pressing issue by any stretch; if you want advice on changing it, I’d write the sentence as “She had a kit by her side with brushes, jags and swatches of dirty cloth, and oil droppers.”

I can light her up like Mairzus,

I don’t think Marise would remember the satyr by name, since that implies a sort of equality. I would have expected something more along the lines of “...like that satyr.”

Still pretty far away. But if these girls are really assassin then she might be able to get to it and punch a hole in me.

There are two others in the room, so “assassin” should be plural.

Before Marise could answer Sephony was twisting out of the tub with the trail-knife to Marise’s throat and pushing against her and knocking her down, pinning her and the knife never wavering and Willowyn off the bed with her sister’s .45 cocked and a split-moment later the Archangel’s black dead eye pressing against Marise’s forehead.

This sentence is too long in my opinion; I’d break it in two after “wavering” (the second half would need a little revising to work grammatically) so that the reader doesn’t get lost in the sheer length of the thing.

“You’re caught cold sorceress; the merest hint of trickery and we’ll paint the floor with you.”

There should be a comma after “cold”; as it is, I read it and thought, “Wait...she’s a fire sorceress...”

She told him how Exalted Mother had ordered her to Sadness to investigate the disappearances. “What disappearances?” Sephony asked, and Marise told her that twenty had vanished in the night without a trace and that, before darkness broke to dawn, a chorus of screams could be heard on the winds. She told them of her capture by the goat-men, and her escape.

Umm...she told *him*? Who the...? Also, you use the verb “told” in every sentence here; to avoid repetition, I’d suggest considering synonyms such as “recount,” “relate,” “divulge,” etc.

The two minutes were up yet the killing had not come.

There should be a comma after “up.”

“No, not today. I’ve nothing left but that. It’s all I have over you and you won’t steal it with torture.”

I feel as though this lacks something; there’s not enough of a description of Marise, or her voice, or elements like that, to really nail down an image. She could still be on the verge of crying when she said this, or her words might have a hint of strength...you get the idea.

Slowly, slowly, Marise walked over to the table...

What happens before this is clear to me, but this point, and some parts that follow, feel disconnected from the first half of the chapter. What prompted this sequence? Why would Marise offer this in the first place?

Oh by the Sightless Eye what are you doing?

Umm...the Sightless Eye is the patron of the eponymous Sisters, not the Zann Esu. Why would a Sorceress offer respects to a foreign deity first, as opposed to one native to Kehjistan? Or is this going to be explained later?

The hatchet was up and back down before Marise could register what had occurred and her little finger jumped across the table with a tail of blood and the pain shot up her arm and exploded in her head, tearing her brain to pieces, the agony of it, her fingerstump sputtering red and she was screaming, shrieking, thrashing; Willowyn flung her against the wall and the bed rattled and Willowyn kicked her in the stomach and the screams and shrieks rushed out of her, all at once, the blood painting roses on her cotton robe.

This is one sentence? *blink*...*blink*... Seriously, though, this is too long. I’d suggest breaking it into three parts, one after “tail of blood,” and the second break at the semicolon. Regardless, the part between the breaks needs a second look in my opinion; “the agony of it” doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of the sentence and “she was screaming...” doesn’t sound parallel with the other verbs. Also, I’d suggest deleting “and the bed rattled” and rewriting that part to avoid using Willowyn’s name twice in the same breath.

Sephony tossed Marise her finger. “Better concentrate,” she said...

Again, maybe I missed something, but I don’t know why the heck this part happened; there’s nothing in the game or the preceding parts of your story that I saw to suggest this is connected with the rest of your tale.

Anyway, this was good, other than the bumps at the end. Thanks for posting!

[Clarke667]

Hey RevenantsKnight, few quick things to mention here...

I agree with 95% of what you've said. Fixes will be made. So thanks again.


One thing, though:

This is one sentence? *blink*...*blink*... Seriously, though, this is too long.

That was sort of the point. I'm sort of a fan of the run-on sentence when a character is in a moment of great stress or pain; in this instance, Marise has just gotten her finger chopped off, so I tried to muddle the narrative a bit. Quite frankly, I enjoy the effect, though I can certainly understand why someone else would not.

Umm...the Sightless Eye is the patron of the eponymous Sisters, not the Zann Esu. Why would a Sorceress offer respects to a foreign deity first, as opposed to one native to Kehjistan? Or is this going to be explained later?

All I can say is, "oh ****". It looks like I've gotten a bit confused about the old mythology... I was under the impression that the sorceresses prayed to the Sightless Eye. Yeeps. Hmmm, I assume I can fix this. Not sure how, exactly.

Double yeeps.

[Clarke667]

New chapter slightly delayed, due to the untimely death of Dimebag Darrell. He was one wicked son of a *****, and I will miss him greatly.

I'm sure Jesus is a Pantera fan. He's a long-hair, after all.