29. [Cortland] Dead By Dawn (Patreon)

King Mudt and his entourage traveled south to confront Kayenna Vezz, who had been chosen by the gods to stand for Orvesis as a champion. Vezz was a master sorceress, a manipulator of ice who had come of age in the cold eastern colonies, and a summoner of talent unmatched outside Besaden. She had unleashed untold horrors upon Infinzel—creatures that still crawl beneath the walls of the pyramidal city to this day. Mudt had always been distrustful of sorcery and so, when some of Vezz’s creations proved uncontrollable and turned upon the Orvesian horde, the king found an opportunity to exile his chief rival from the front. 

Following her exile, Vezz lived amongst her followers in the southern city of Rouchet. She was rumored to command a small but formidable army. Further, Vezz entertained ambassadors from across the sea, from Penchenne, and from Besaden. It was said that she even took a lover from among the beastmen and that she once hosted a secret visit from the king of Infinzel’s ambitious younger brother. Despite her penchant for the monstrous, many thought that installing Vezz atop the Orvesian war machine might nudge the world toward peace. That was, of course, prior to the ge’ema forcing peace upon their unruly subjects.

On the matter of Kayenna Vezz, it is difficult to parse the truth of these many fractured accounts. Records are lacking and survivors few. Vezz’s followers would be massacred in the months that followed her confrontation with King Mudt. Those who survived would be swept up in the Annihilation to come. Thus, we have little firsthand knowledge to draw upon.  

With the benefit of hindsight, most historians agree that the execution of Kayenna Vezz was a turning point in Orvesian history. Some believe that Vezz’s selection by the gods was a test set before King Mudt, one that he proved incapable of succeeding and thus, through his own hubris, did the rampaging Mudt seal the fate of his people.

However, there are others who believe the ge’ema’s choice was not a test for Mudt but rather a provocation. The gods chose Kayenna Vezz knowing what King Mudt’s inevitable reaction would be. Given the results of the First Granting, it should be no surprise that the Orvesian people remain mired in cynicism and grievance. Yet, even accounting for this trauma, we must still ask ourselves:

What did the gods have against Kayenna Vezz?

--Record of the First Granting and Dawning of the Second Age

Lyus Crodd, Scribe of the Dead Kingdom of Orvesis

***

--DRAMATIS PERSONAE—

Cortland Finiron, Hammer Master of the 12th Renown, Kingdom of Infinzel, in for a rude awakening

Carina Goldstone, Logician of the 2nd Renown, Kingdom of Infinzel, something to prove

King Cizco Salvado, Quill of Infinzel, Kingdom of Infinzel, an enthralled defender

***

5 Harvesend, 61 AW

The pyramidal city of Infinzel, North Continent

235 days until the next Granting

Cortland Finiron sensed wrongness in the air before he even opened the door to leave his apartment. He had just sunk his hammer into the loop on his belt when his skin began to tingle. The thick hair on his arms stood on end.

He had left his buckler down in the training pit’s armory after yesterday’s session with Carina. While Cortland almost always carried his hammer, he wasn’t in the habit of walking around Infinzel with his shield. Now, he wished he had it.  

Cortland stepped into the hallway and closed his door with more care for quiet than usual. There was a stillness on the tier, although that wasn’t unusual considering he was up three hours before the sun. The arcane lamps flickered with their subdued light. The hallway was completely empty, yet for some reason Cortland felt like there were eyes upon him.

He put his hand on his hammer. His palm tingled, slick with sweat. The cavern creeps—that’s what Ben Tuarez had called this feeling, an old mining term that explained a digger’s intuition for when a tunnel might collapse. Cortland couldn’t explain why he felt that way now. He rarely suffered this kind of anxiety even on the island. He never brought it home with him.

Cortland edged down the hallway. He passed Vitt’s door—heard the usual quiet from within, the hunter spent most nights out—and kept going. Reaching Henry’s door, Cortland knocked softly. No response. The healer must have already headed down to the training pit for that morning’s work with Carina.

Edging forward, Cortland reached the unguarded staircase up to King Cizco’s living quarters and the stairs descending down to Infinzel’s lower tiers. Behind him, the lift that Cortland always avoided waited with its gatefold doors ajar, meaning the platform was on this tier—someone had recently arrived.  

A sudden urge to jog up the stairs to check on Cizco came over Cortland. But then, he noticed a strange glow emanating from the stairs leading down. Someone had painted new runes on the stone steps. Cortland crouched down to hold his hand over one of the symbols as if he might feel some heat rolling off it, but nothing remarkable happened. The glowing rune was unfamiliar to Cortland. He’d need to consult one of the books in the Battle Library—

A whispered word from somewhere behind him. Cortland couldn’t make it out, but instinctively knew it was a word of command. An activation.

The rune beneath Cortland’s fingers crackled and a maelstrom of sparks enveloped him. He flinched backward and stood straight. The sparks didn’t hurt as they touched his skin, like static rustling across a bedsheet. But where the sparks cascaded over his chain-shirt, the wards weaved into the metal went dark. The magical protection from his armor had been dispelled.

He’d managed to half-turn around when the first crossbow bolt ripped into him. The arrow tore through the meat of his triceps and into his ribs, pinning his arm to his side. As he groped for his hammer, he heard the crank of a Gadgeteer-made auto-loader and then a metallic twang. Caught out, the second bolt pierced his abdomen, splitting links and shearing straight through the worthless wards on his armor.

For a moment, he saw his attacker. She stood inside the lift, firing at him through the narrow opening of the doorway. Her lithe frame was clad in an ink black ward-weave dress. Her face was hidden behind the leering mask of a laughing monkey.

The assassin. She had come for him.

Cortland shouted once—part pain, but mostly rage—then teetered backward and fell down the stairs.

There were more wards waiting for him as he fell. Trap wards drawn onto the steps and etched into the walls. As he bumped against them, each ward detonated in a concussive explosion, buffeting Cortland around and pelting him with shattered stone. He felt the bones in one of his knees crumble and tasted blood as it dripped thickly down from the top of his head. The assassin had booby-trapped the entire gods damned staircase.

“Fuck this,” Cortland grunted.

He poured his will into [Unmovable].

Another ward exploded under Cortland’s back. His body absorbed this final burst of kinetic energy without being thrown further down the steps. His bones rattled and his guts shifted, but he at least stopped tumbling downward into further traps. Breathing hard, Cortland rolled onto one knee. He gritted his teeth and yanked his arm away from his side, tearing flesh as he pulled the crossbow bolt free. The other bolt, the one in his guts, had partly snapped during his fall and subsequent bombardment. He didn’t bother breaking it off further.

Instead, he took his hammer into his hand and shakily pushed himself to his feet. His leg nearly buckled but held.

The assassin stood at the top of the steps. She aimed down at him and fired another shot.

Cortland raised his forearm, even as his upper arm squelched blood. His buckler wasn’t there, but it didn’t have to be for the Ink to work. He activated [Greater Shield] and a wall of invisible force extended before him. The assassin’s bolt twisted and bent in the air, falling at Cortland’s feet.

For a moment, Cortland got a clearer look at his attacker. She seemed smaller than he remembered and the mask was different. A part of him hesitated—something was off. He could sense his [Recovery+] Ink working, trying to knit his injuries back together. He also felt flashes of clarity as the Ink worked to cleanse his mind. The flashes of panic he’d felt before and the woozy disorientation he suffered now—some of that was probably due to getting thrown like a straw doll down the steps—but Cortland sensed there was more to it. He’d been dosed with something. Before he even stepped into the hallway, he’d been under attack.

Well, he could see his attacker now. He cocked his good arm back.

The assassin took off running.

“That won’t help you,” Cortland said.

Cortland used [Hammer Toss]. His hammer whipped from his hand, streaked up the stairs, and then curved left to track the assassin. Cortland controlled the hammer’s trajectory. He couldn’t see through the stone head, but he could feel its closeness to the target. The satisfying crunch as it slammed between the assassin’s shoulder blades rippled through Cortland’s arm almost like he’d struck the blow himself.

Hearing the assassin fall, Cortland picked his way across the ruined staircase as quickly as he could with a hobbled leg. He reentered the hallway as the flattened assassin had just shoved herself to her hands and knees. Cortland made out a large ward—now darkened—drawn across the back of her dress. Had she been expecting to be struck there?

He raised his hand and used [Weapon Return]. Cortland’s hammer zipped backed to him.

Cortland fumbled the catch. His hammer clanged heavily against the floor, leaving behind a spider’s web of fractures in the stone.

Surprised at his clumsiness, Cortland looked down at his hands. His fingers were swollen red and huge like sausages. He couldn’t make a fist; the skin along his knuckles felt like it would split apart if he tried. He reached for his hammer with his off-hand—still not fully functional after taking an arrow—then hesitated. Something must have been on the handle of his hammer. A toxin of some kind.

Cortland snapped his gaze back to the assassin. Although she had the wind knocked out of her, she’d regained her feet. He understood why she wore that mask—to provoke him, to keep him from thinking clearly. He stopped reaching for his hammer.

“You think you’ve thought of everything, don’t you?” Cortland asked. “But I don’t need any fucking hammer for you.”

She raised her crossbow.

Cortland used [Bull Rush]. Unarmed, his body shot forward, bad leg dangling, his shoulder dropping. He slammed into the assassin and knocked her flat. Yet, something about this felt too easy, like he’d once again been maneuvered exactly where she wanted him.

Whatever. He would cave in her gods damned face, regardless. He raised his damaged leg and stomped downward.

The assassin rolled backward, avoiding Cortland’s heavy boot. At first, he thought he’d fully broken the leg in the effort as he bucked forward. But that wasn’t it at all.

Somehow, Cortland’s foot sunk into the stone itself, like he’d stepped into quicksand. The very floor of Infinzel sucked in his leg down to the knee. The stone tightened around his leg like a vice. There had been no ward painted on the floor, no indication of another trap, so how—

“Yield, Cortland,” a voice commanded from behind him.

Cortland twisted to look over his shoulder. King Cizco stood at the base of the stairs, his hand extended toward Cortland. The tips of his fingers were gray-tipped, as if he’d dipped them into the mineral garden. They were calcified, Cortland realized, a side effect of the magic the king had just deployed against him.

“Cizco, what?” Cortland sputtered. “What are you doing?”

“I am her Enthralled Defender,” the king said flatly. He peered almost bemusedly at his stone-coated hand. “Although, if this game goes on any further, I will be forced to test my will against our logician’s.”

Cortland turned back around just as Carina Goldstone tackled him. With his leg sucked into the floor, even the girl’s slight weight was enough to topple him backward. She’d ripped off her monkey mask and now pressed a dagger to his throat. Her sweaty hair stuck to her face. There was blood on her lips. By the way her pupils bounced, Cortland could tell she was using her [Future Sight] to anticipate any last attacks he might make.

“I told you that a real fight with me would be one you didn’t see coming,” Carina said. “I’ve bested you, now yield.”

***

Carina had spent weeks perfecting the runes. She studied the defensive wards weaved into Cortland’s armor, then made sure that her dispellment rune would be strong enough to render them useless. Then, it became a matter of logistics. She needed to make sure her concussive runes would be drawn at such a distance so as not to be affected by her own dispellment. The chain reaction took some days to perfect.

She practiced with a crossbow during the hours when Cortland and Henry weren’t training her. Her aim was only decent. She would need to be close.

She collected ingredients for two toxins that could be absorbed into the handle of Cortland’s hammer. The first would be fast-acting—increase his paranoia and anxiety, make him fight without control. The second would work slower and ruin his hands. She did not want his [Recovery+] to kick in too quickly and neutralize the second poison, so she would need to make sure he was hurt early. Give his body too many injuries to fight all at once.

She made a mask approximating the one the assassin wore on Armistice. Perhaps this was a low blow, but it would further unbalance Cortland, so it was necessary.

She studied Cortland’s lines of attack during beating after beating in the training pit. She knew where he would hit her and focused her own ward-weave on those areas.

She meditated with her [Future Sight]. She visualized the attack every night. She needed to choose a morning when she could predict how quickly King Cizco would come downstairs to investigate. Carina was pretty sure she could use him as her [Enthralled Defender]—make him fight on her behalf—but only for a short while. He had a strong will and such loss of autonomy would prove disconcerting for a man like him. She suspected he would not tolerate it for long, but would respect her audacity.

Or, he would kill her. Small chance, as always.

Finally, she saw a morning when her victory was the most likely outcome. King Cizco had company the night before. That would make him slower to react to the ruckus. His mind would be more at ease, as well.

She forged orders for the garrison patrols to close the staircase leading to their tier overnight, and to shut down the lift for inspection. She also filed requests for repairs with the stone-tenders; repairs she knew would be necessary after the fight. Carina knew she would be expected to clean up after herself. That was to be part of the demonstration.

She brought Cortland dinner as she did most nights—a gesture she’d originally meant as kindness but that she knew, sadly, would probably be stopped now. While he cleaned up dishes, she layered the handle of his hammer thick with poison.

She dosed Henry Blacksalve as well, to keep him from interfering. She staged her preparations from his room, and drew two large healing circles on the floor of his apartment. If she’d measured her powders correctly—and she certainly had—Henry would wake up shortly after the fight ended. The healing circles would let him augment his abilities, in case things got out of hand. As she was endangering the king, she did not want to take any chances in that regard.

She didn’t sleep. She painted the runes overnight and huddled in the dormant lift until Cortland awoke.

And, even after all that, it had been a narrow thing. Even with a dagger pressed to his neck, Carina wasn’t sure what Cortland would choose. He might fight on. She may have taken this too far. There was a version of this attack, a remote possibility where… well, she didn’t want to think about that.

He had set a challenge for her. And Carina hated to fail. So, in truth, this was all Cortland’s fault. An inevitability they would end up here. She saw recognition in his eyes. He knew her now. He and the king both saw what a fine weapon they had in their arsenal. She had shown them her depths and, in the long run, they would trust her more for it.

She hoped.  

“Fine,” Cortland said through gritted teeth. “I yield.”

Carina breathed out a sigh of relief, withdrew her dagger, and smiled.

“Thank you,” she said, “for the excellent training.”