The Poisoned Feast
Marin sat on the ground, her mouth hanging open slackly. Bayola, who had been watching the people hurling abuse at the assassins... or drug dealers, turned to her and asked,
"What's got you so pissed?"
"My damn situation, stuck here like this."
The task Marhal had asked Marin to do was to keep an eye on the punished assassins. Unable to refuse a request from Marhal, she had no choice but to sit in an inconspicuous spot day and night, watching them.
"Why? It's necessary work. Someone might come to rescue them, you know."
"Who?"
"Someone after their skills, maybe?"
Marin reached out and ruffled Bayola's hair.
"What the hell? Why?!"
Bayola, clueless about the reason, swatted Marin's hand away in protest.
"Just seeing you've learned something after all."
"Wait, you thought that little of me?"
"Well, do you look like you wouldn't need watching? There are still plenty of those drug-importing bastards around."
Marhal and Hugo were rounding them up, but catching every single dealer and distributor was realistically impossible. Even if they caught them all, the rumors had already spread. The drug made by the Black Fingers was, in Marin's eyes—who had seen plenty of addicts—a seriously potent stuff.
Who knew when someone after the drug recipe might try to snatch these pillar-bound guys. A watcher was necessary, but even if they grabbed them all, there wasn't much to gain. She'd heard from Bayola about what happened while she was asleep. The mage who supposedly had the drug recipe and gold-making technique? Marhal had dealt with him. Assassination skills might be worth something, but for drugs, there was nothing left to take from them.
But not everyone in the city knew that. Even if Hugo announced it officially, the skeptics wouldn't believe it.
"Then it's important work, right? What's the complaint?"
"Anyone could do it; doesn't have to be me."
For simple surveillance, there were tons of people who could handle it besides Marin. She knew she was pretty. Living on the streets, she'd seen guys hitting on her, and recalling near-death experiences tied to her good looks made it impossible to deny. She might not know her exact level, but she sure as hell wasn't average. And the imperial princess next to her? No need to even mention.
If they needed a watcher, some plain-looking guy would be more discreet and safer than her. Marhal had to know that. He was using surveillance as an excuse to force her to rest. Did he not trust her? It stung a bit, but his consideration didn't feel bad. Still, she wanted to move.
"I'm fine, body and all."
"Good to hear."
A reply came from behind to Marin's mutter. Strekl was carrying a pot that even he seemed sick of looking at.
Strekl set the pot full of finished food on the ground.
"Medicine."
"Not poison?"
"Our school's poison resistance is superior to that of ordinary superhumans. Getting taken down by some backwater assassin's poison? That's just lack of training."
"Since when do assassins have 'backwater' and 'city' varieties?"
Bayola asked with a baffled look. And shouldn't assassins avoid people's eyes anyway? What made city assassins different?
"You think the guys taking commissions from high imperial nobles in the capital are on the same level as country bumpkins who can't even distinguish curses from poisons?"
"Hearing it now, yeah, probably not..."
"So eat up. Then training."
"What about surveillance?"
Marin said, making it blatantly obvious she had zero interest in the pot's contents. Yesterday, after the poisoning, she hadn't eaten a thing, and today she'd only had a few pieces of bread in the morning. Honestly, just for today, she wanted human food.
"With this many eyes around, what surveillance?"
As Strekl said, there were hundreds of onlookers nearby. Fewer than in the morning, but still plenty came by to gawk at the prisoners' state. They were all watchers in a way; Marin blinking wouldn't change much.
"Am I wrong?"
She wasn't, which made it worse. Not just Marin—even Bayola, who had tagged along and now had to eat Strekl's cooking, pulled a face. Lately, she'd been able to slip away under the excuse of checking the warehouse, but with Strekl here in person, no excuses worked. The lid that shouldn't be opened had been pried off.
Marin and Bayola had long given up trying to guess the ingredients from the pot's contents. It wasn't that they couldn't figure it out; it was that knowing would shatter their minds.
"Back when I was a novice, I used to look forward to every mealtime. My master, who you'd question the sanity of, only allowed water outside the three daily meals. Compared to that, you two have it easy."
"Boomer."
"Boomer? I'm just stating objective facts..."
"That's what makes you a boomer."
Strekl's hand paused. He lowered his head, staring into the bowl at the sloshing soup for a moment. He almost asked if they understood the philosophy in this food... but stopped. Instead, he confronted another reality overshadowed by his war hero title.
"...Have I become a boomer?"
He gazed at the sky with distant eyes. Memories of his youth flooded back. Watching his insane master control every aspect of his disciple's life, he'd vowed multiple times a day never to become like that. Was time inevitable? If this too was part of human history, then human Strekl would humbly accept it.
"If I'm already a boomer, then I can act even more like one..."
At Strekl's resolute murmur, his two disciples exchanged glances. A silent conversation passed between them.
Has this guy lost it? What do we do now? Hell if I know.
"Not eating? If you collapse during training, that's on you."
Under Strekl's threat, Marin and Bayola picked up their spoons. As Bayola forced down her meal, she spotted people approaching the pillars. She poked Marin's side with the spoon handle.
"What?"
"Those guys—should we let them?"
"They said they'd feed 'em."
"...Not just starving them to death?"
Hanging there to die was punishment enough, but there was a big difference between that and outright starvation versus just being tied up.
In search and tracking knight training, fasting was the hardest part, she'd heard from Rebela. Even those who endured torture training broke during fasting.
"No, those bastards are gonna starve. Horribly."
Hugo's men were taking the assassins down from the pillars and feeding them. The assassins, denied even a sip of water, gulped it down greedily with their arms bound, then devoured the food in front of them. Yusbalt, though, preserved some boss pride and didn't touch the food. But thirst was thirst; he bowed his head and drained a bowl of water.
It's over.
Marhal and Hugo had been through this before. Did big shots from the east, who knew classic tactics even backwater assassins like Kerdeshi recognized, skip them when western pioneering began? No. They'd done it multiple times to seize cities and pioneer villages—and all died. Every landlord standing since the land race began had experienced it at least once.
The oddity here was just how high-grade the drug these guys had was, disproportionate to their station. Its quality was so good, victims piled up fast. Marhal and Hugo had fought more famous types using the same methods and knew how to make drug makers suffer before death.
That was it. Water. Food. A feast for those who should starve.
The meal Marhal gave the assassins wasn't cheap criminal slop. Piled like dog food, sure, but it was proper cuisine cooked by a skilled chef.
"That food's laced with the drug."
"The drug?"
"Let them taste what addicts feel firsthand. Plus the hunger of those ruined by it. And at the end? No more drugs, no more food—just starvation. That's their future."
One assassin, nose-deep in his bowl, sensed something off and yelled, but it was too late. Yusbalt, intuiting his pathetic end from deep in his lungs, let out a primal scream.
Hugo's men hung the fed assassins back on the pillars and vanished into the city. Happiness now filled the faces that had shown only resignation moments ago. A happiness that would evaporate in hours, returning tenfold in agony. When the end was set, enjoying immediate pleasure wasn't a bad choice.
"Food's done. Up. Training now."
Strekl tossed the wooden sword from his belt to the ground. Bayola grudgingly picked up her sword, and Marin—stuck here anyway per Marhal's request—grabbed hers.
"Come at me. It's been a while, so free spar first."
Marin and Bayola exchanged brief glances and split left and right. They attacked Strekl's head and legs simultaneously from both sides. Strekl took the leg strikes without losing stance, blocking the head attacks with his wooden sword.
"That's cheating!"
"Using what you've got is skill too."
The clash of wood on wood, wood on iron echoed loudly across the wasteland.
* * *
Marhal was at the dump.
"What a mess."
The mountain of trash occupying one side of the city had collapsed. Rusty metal mixed with stagnant water and filth had splattered nearby buildings. It was filthy before, but now even sewer rats would find it unlivable.
"Sorry."
Kaban bowed beside Marhal.
"Sorry my ass— I ordered it. Good chance to clear the trash too. I want to expand the city, and this just gets in the way."
The dump was on the city outskirts. Started in a nearby empty lot, it grew into the city itself. Too massive to touch easily, it had been left alone.
Raze it and build a new one outside; that'd buy years.
"Hugo, ready?"
"Evac done, water prepped to douse stray fires."
"With me here, fire won't spread weird, but better safe. Start."
Hugo signaled, and torches flew from all sides into the heap. Oil had been poured earlier. Flames caught.
Heat like roasting flesh hit Marhal's face. Nearby men shielded and retreated from the unexpected intensity.
Boom!
Something exploded. Big one. Fireballs shot skyward, scattering.
This could turn into a blaze.
"Boss."
"It's fine. More importantly, everyone's pulled back?"
"Down to the last beggar."
Only Hugo's and Marhal's men nearby. Knight-order level, ready to deploy.
"Good."
A fireball cascade speared a building like a waterfall. Soon, a man burst out wreathed in flames, rolling on the ground until death.
"Can't slack on outside threats even a little, huh."
"Sorry."
"I halted surveillance, so we rebuild the net. Right—ebony wood status?"
"Tracked the fake's source."
"Where?"
"...Haily's land."
"Troublesome."
Haily was tricky. In some ways, more than Azenman. The West's most successful nute and major landlord. If Marhal knew Aphranche from maps, Haily knew pre-fall Aphranche—he'd lived here.