Belus Alpen
Belus Alpen
The Tail Warrior Squad's quarters, like most dwellings in the Tail District, were far from comfortable—even drearier and more wretched than the average slum house. The building had started as a watchtower, built before the Tail District got its name, back when this quarter wasn't a destitute backwater. It had been crudely converted into barracks, and the result was every bit as grim as its history suggested. The warriors sprawled inside the timber tower—vulnerable as it was to fire—only deepened the squalor. Wounded, exhausted, lying where they'd collapsed. Their presence was pitiable. And their numbers were so few the spacious interior of the watchtower felt desolate.
Aslan could guess why as soon as he stepped inside. The clash with the Dragon-king had killed many warriors. The Tail Squad was still out pounding the dirt, trying to fill those vacancies. Every such errand required Harod's presence, so his absence made sense.
Under the wary eyes of the remaining warriors, Aslan settled inside the barracks. A soldier sat down across from him without ceremony and pushed two cups of water across the table. Wooden cups, crudely carved, with bits of twig still floating in them. Aslan lifted one carefully, took a sip, and let out a soft grunt at the stale, musty taste spreading through his mouth.
"So. You came looking for us?"
Nobody reproached him for his reaction. The warrior who had brought the water simply studied Aslan and Angie with a measured gaze.
He was missing an eye. In its place was only a scar from cauterization—a wound burned shut. Aslan met the man's remaining eye and recalled Harod's offhand mention of his adjutant. Kal the One-Eyed: Harod's second-in-command, the only man in the Tail Squad who had originally been an outside mercenary. Harod had said the adjutant lost the eye to trouble inside the Tail District. Aslan flicked his gaze toward Angie. The tension on her face told him the rest. The man who had taken Kal's eye was, in all likelihood, Angie's father. Gale. Whatever the reason, a mercenary returning from outside work would inevitably draw suspicion, and Gale would have acted on it. Studying the burn scar without being obvious about it, Aslan recognized the mark of a heated coal pressed into flesh.
With that context in place, he could read Angie's expression more clearly. The tension was undercut by faint guilt and awkwardness. He reached over and patted her on the back. When her eyes flicked toward him, he offered a quiet smile. Angie let out a soft breath at the sight of it.
"Yeah, I came... because of Gale."
At the name, Kal's face began to twist. Angie hurried on.
"Did you know Gale was about to wreck the warrior squad? I got in his way, so he backed off, but still."
Kal frowned, and the burn scar seemed to warp with the motion. He shook his head against the grotesque pull of his own skin.
"That can't be. The Tail Warrior Squad was sanctioned by the elders themselves. Harod commands it. Moving against us is the same as attacking Belus Alpen."
The implication was clear: impossible. You must be mistaken. Angie shut her mouth, sorting her thoughts. She thought hard enough that even Aslan, watching from the side, could tell. Then she spoke.
"I'm Gale's daughter. You know that."
"I do."
"Aslan here fought the Dragon-king. The whole city got wrecked. Gale might not know the reasons or all the background, but he's definitely figured out that the dragon has no attention to spare for the Tail District."
Kal's expression soured. Angie met his eyes. Her golden irises gleamed.
"You already know how it works. What happens in the tail stays in the tail. And a dragon doesn't care if its tail drags through mud or blood—it just keeps moving forward."
The man called Kal wore his displeasure openly. He didn't bother hiding it, leaning back until his shoulders met the backrest as if disappointed he could retreat no further.
"I know Gale," Angie said. Her brow furrowed, her voice taking on an almost prophetic certainty. "He's either planning to wreck the squad and take its equipment for himself, or—worse—he's going to wipe the squad out entirely just to keep his grip on the Tail District."
The logic held. Kal touched the scarred socket where his left eye had been, memory stirring. Gale had taken his eye for no better reason than that he was a fellow countryman who had come back from mercenary work abroad. Gale had always been that way. He'd removed Old Bug for the same kind of reason. He'd burned out Kal's eye for it. There was no reason to think he'd changed. Kal accepted the conclusion and looked at Angie.
"You came here to warn us?"
Angie shook her head.
"I came to help."
Kal's eye shifted to Aslan. Aslan: Harod's acquaintance, a warrior who had demonstrated uncanny precision with a thrown dagger. The man who had brought down the Dragon-king, become the first human noble, and been granted Flametongue's castle as a reward. Kal didn't know the details, but the martial strength on display was plainly sufficient.
"So you brought Harod's friend here? Then we can mobilize as well—"
"No." Angie shook her head again. Through the tousle of scarlet hair, a faint glimmer of embarrassment shone gold. "Aslan is... I mean, I'd like him to just watch, but he's also here in case I screw everything up. I'm an idiot. There's a real chance I'll make a complete disaster of things. I brought him to stop that."
Kal let out a noncommittal hum and thought it over seriously. The final authority for the Tail Squad rested with Harod of Claw, but as adjutant, Kal had the right to make decisions in the captain's stead. That didn't mean he could decide recklessly. Whatever he chose would be his responsibility. He mulled it over in silence for a long moment.
Before he could speak, a commotion erupted outside. Shouts and yells spread, and everyone inside turned their heads toward the door. Before anyone could grasp what was happening, a warrior came pounding down the watchtower's spiral staircase. The sentry leaned over the railing and shouted.
"Sub-captain! There's a whole mob of bastards outside!"
"What?"
Kal rose, hooking his weapon to his belt as the sentry added, "Dragon-kin nobles, too. A lot of them. What do we do?"
Dragon-kin too? Kal's thoughts sharpened. If dragon-kin were involved in something like this without warning, it had to be connected to these two. He didn't need to persuade anyone. Aslan and Angie were already on their feet, heading for the door.
Kal followed them outside, and the scene resolved before his remaining eye. The dragon-kin were there, six of them. Not a huge number, but they had plenty of company: armed slum-dwellers surrounded them. The crowd looked as though it had spilled from every corner of the Tail District. Kal's expression hardened.
"There she is! The filthy priest whore in league with the evil god!"
A voice rang out from the press of bodies, and the crowd shifted, parting just enough to reveal Gale. His finger was leveled at Angie.
"That girl..."
"She doesn't look the part."
"Still, you never know."
The dragon-kin listened to Gale and lowered their weapons cautiously toward Angie. She scowled at the blades aimed her way, and her scowl drew shouts and brandished weapons from the mob—fear, bright and unthinking, behind every yell. Most of it was incoherent noise. What she could make out was mostly some variant of "filthy priest!"
As Aslan silently assessed the situation, Angie stepped forward. Part of it was a sense that she needed to calm things down. Part of it was the knowledge that these weapons couldn't truly hurt her. Even the cut her father had given her earlier had already closed.
"Wait, everyone, listen to me! I'm—"
"A damn priest! A priest in Belus Alpen!"
"Burn her! Fire and Smithing will burn you!"
The crowd only grew more agitated. Someone tried to jab a spear at her as she approached. She caught the weapon and wrenched it away. The disarmed man howled, "The priest's power!"
The situation didn't improve. It escalated.
"That's not—this power isn't—"
"A priest! She's definitely a priest!"
"Fire and Smithing... protect us..."
"You fucking bitch!"
Crude curses. A crowd that refused to hear a word she said. The spiral tightening. Angie took it all in until something like vertigo surged through her. She drew a deep breath, forcing the dizziness back. When the spinning faded, irritation rushed into the empty space it left behind.
"I said listen, you bastards!"
KWA-BOOM!
The fury went out through her heel. Her stomp tore through the ground, spitting stone chips and splitting the earth, staggering everyone standing nearby. Men who had been gripping their weapons a moment from violence stumbled or fell. Dragon-kin and slum-dwellers alike went still. Silence dropped like a blade.
Angie seized the gap immediately. Her face was twisted with frustration, and she spat the words as though biting through them.
"Every son of a bitch who's never even seen a priest, shut your mouth. From now on, the next one who opens his trap gets his tongue ripped out and hanged with it."
The threat cowed the crowd into silence—just long enough for Gale to call out boldly from among them.
"Look at that! If that's not a priest, what is it? Strength beyond human, cruelty beyond reason! That's a priest!"
Murmuring rippled through the assembly. He has a point. Angie met her father's gaze with naked disgust. At the smile twisting across his repellent face, hers tightened with irritation.
"Yeah, priests get strength like mine. But most of them throw away their human shape and become monsters. You can tell at a glance what they are. But you've never even seen one, so you wouldn't know—"
"Lies!"
Gale cut his daughter off and addressed the crowd, a born demagogue. "Who does she think she's fooling? She thinks we're ignorant fools who've never seen a priest! She's trying to talk her way out with words she can't prove! Who doesn't see through that?"
"Right! We're not easy marks! You think we're idiots?!"
"Burn the bitch! Prove it with fire!"
"Yeah, prove it! If you can't, die!"
The crowd hurled the words like barbed darts. Angie's lip curled in a sneer. She turned her gaze toward Aslan. He'd been reading the situation, weighing the next move. At the stare from those sharp golden eyes, he gave a small nod and stepped forward. When his gaze met the dragon-kin among the crowd, their expressions shifted from puzzlement to something close to alarm.
"Aslan Flametongue...!"
The slum-dwellers didn't recognize the name, but the dragon-kin bowed frantically at the waist.
"Gomul Clo and five others present our respects to Lord Aslan!"
They bent low and used the formal address. The slum-dwellers blinked, their eyes darting between Aslan and the dragon-kin. Everyone in Belus Alpen knew that dragon-kin never bowed to humans. It was common sense. And common sense had just been overturned. The dragon-kin had bowed. Even these people understood what it meant: the man before them outranked the dragon-kin. He was a true lord.
Into that silence, someone's shocked voice cut through.
"Master of Combat...!"
It was Kal, the Tail Squad's sub-captain and former mercenary. He had felt a prickling familiarity at the name Aslan, and now it struck him with full force. The murmur rippled through the crowd. These slum-dwellers were slow to catch outside news, but even they knew what a Master was. Those with sharper ears for the world beyond the district could even recall the other epithet that clung to Aslan. Priest Slayer. A man who had killed priests—many of them. If a man like that stood beside the girl, maybe her words held truth. The thought began to spread among a fraction of the crowd.
Gale read the shifting mood and bellowed, his face severe. "Then what about that strength? Bring proof that her power isn't from a priest! Without proof, we won't believe it!"
Aslan was about to dismiss the demand—why should we prove a negative?—but stopped when Angie let out a scornful laugh.
"Proof? Fine. I am my own proof!"
All eyes snapped to her. She laid a hand on her chest and declared, "I am the Last Descendant of the Ancient God!"
The words meant nothing to people who lacked the requisite knowledge. The crowd stared blankly. Angie, apparently having expected the phrase itself to win the argument, faltered. A small, "Uh, that's not how this was supposed to..." slipped out of her.
She stood frozen. The mob stood bewildered. In the confused silence that followed, Aslan stepped forward with a faint smile. This was about the best Angie could manage—she lacked both glibness and deep lore. It was his turn.
"Good work. I'll take it from here."
He patted her head and moved past her, and the confusion stalled. Every eye turned to Aslan. He, too, was no great orator. But he didn't need to persuade anyone. He drew Purity from its sheath. The stone sword slid free, and the sudden gleam of the blade made the slum-dwellers flinch. The dragon-kin watched with rapt fascination. The abruptness of the act stole everyone's voice. They simply stared at the weapon.
Aslan allowed himself a small smile and murmured a single word.
"Purity."
White fire bloomed along the blade.