• Mature • The Crossing (Graded)

[Kasoria]

46th Trial, Vhalar, 718a
Outskirts of Etzos, Southwood River
23rd break

Continued from here




"Quit fuckin' starin' at it."

"m'not."

"Y'are, an' it's fuckin' annoying."

The softie shuffled and tried to make it look like it was because of the cold. Probably was, at least a little. The start of the season came with cold winds but bright, warm suns. Promising cold but never quite delivering it. Then the trials wound on. A march of time that dragged the temperature down with it, started to suck the heat from the night until the suns had to be high and shining for a man to feel them. Soon even they wouldn't be able to help.

Raker knew the cold of Z'da well. He'd survived twenty of them, and in a place where living through the freeze wasn't always certain. The Oh'Pee didn't have the high walls of the rest of Etzos; there were plenty of buildings with thin walls and old doors. The cold seeped in through every crack and even being inside was no protection. He'd woken up one trial, long ago, and found his younger brother forever sleeping. With blue lips. White cheeks.

His mother didn't stop crying all day. Then she did, and life went on. Because that's how it was in the Outer Perimeter.

"Jus' wanna see it, is all."

"Fuck's sake..."

There was a hiss of metal on leather as Raker humored his partner for the night. A block of steel was revealed to the moons and the stars. Not the silver slash of a sword, but the squat, ugly, heavy blade of a butcher's cleaver. Something everyone that worked with meat knew well, but in the eyes of the softie, it was so much more. It was a testament, and a declaration, sure as ganger tats and your name known on the cobbles.

"Happy now?"

Softie nodded. Down here, in the grubby corner of Etzos, that meant something when it was hugging a man's hip. It meant you were with the Reaver-Cleavers, and you had a whole crew of hard bastards marching invisibly beside you. Brothers and comrades, who you could whistle up and count on. Raker had put in plenty of work to get his, because you had to.

Carry a knife. Carry a dagger. Carry knucks. Carry anything, but not a cleaver. That's for the people that earn them.

The ganger sighed and sheathed the weapon. Aye, that was all well and good, but he was still up here on shit duty tonight. Watching over the pier stretching into the black river. A dozen men were ambling around in the yard in front of it, buildings looming over the open space like sleeping, squatting giants. They were the lookouts, though. They had the height to see beyond the buildings, back towards the city, up and down the river banks. Just in case anyone came around looking to crash their... reception.

"Who're these blokes, anyway? The ones they're bringin' in?"

"Dunno. They didn't tell me. Bosses ain't told anyone, near as I can tell."

"Hmph. Must be dangerous bastards, eh?"

Raker snorted at that, then wiped his dripping nose for the fiftieth time. He should have worn more clothes tonight. Pushing the end of the trial and the birth of the new, that was the coldest time. He didn't need to come down with some fucking cold, right when he'd just earned his cleaver. He got up and stretched his legs, looking one way... then the other... then behind...

As usual, fuck all.

"We're all dangerous bastards," he said a little defensively, as he sat back down. "Dunno why we need t'bring in anyone else."

The softie - fucked it Raker could remember his name, at that moment - seemed to have a little nous about him, given what he came back with.

"Aye, fer where we are now. But if the bosses are lookin' to mix it with Vorund, well..."

He left the rest unsaid, and Raker just nodded along. Boy had a point, after all. Exley and Edmond were lethal bastards, he knew that from memory. They had two-dozen cleavers they could call on, too, and they'd been expanding steadily over the last few arcs. But they still paid the rent, like everyone else. They still remembered their place, because they were still the young pups, and Vorund was the big dog. One message, one proclamation on the South Side grapevine, and fifty men could be whistled up, armed, and sent screaming into their territory with very simple orders.

Raker was good at what he did. But he wasn't a fool. The Raggedy Man alone was a nightmare on legs, so he'd heard, and he was just one man. If Vorund could gather up more like him, well... it wouldn't end well for him, or the bosses, or the Reaver-Cleavers, or the man above them all. Fozzie Tatum, sporting man and fucking pimp, benefactor of his nephews and sponsor of them all.

"Aye, well," Raker muttered, locking eyes on the tubby bastard sitting on the end of a wagon, attended like a feudal lord with wine and smoke while he waited. "Old man must know what he's doin'."

"Aye... well, m'goin' fer a piss."

"Fuck's sake," Raker twisted around to glare at the smaller man, hustling up and away into the shadows at the end of the roof. "You just fuckin' went!"

"I need t'go!"

"Quit sippin' at that flask in yer pocket! Yeah, I fuckin' noticed! Bosses need everyone sharp t'night!"

"Ah, c'mon, Raker," the softie said with a wave of his hand, vanishing into the darkness. "Ain't no-one comin'. We'd see 'em."

Raker wasn't one to talk to a big patch of bloody dark, so he just turned back around and scowled at the gathering down below. Fucking kid. Fucking disrespect, that was. Couldn't have that. When he got back, he'd have to get that cleaver out again, show the boy to he needed to mind his tongue or use it. For the moment, he kept his watch out... and yes, took a nip from his own flask.

Moderation. That's the bloody difference.

He saw it before they did. Just as the flask was lowered from his face. Not a boat, or a canoe, or anything like that. Something coming up from the water. He couldn't tell what, but he could see the shimmering pattern of stars and moonlight disturbed by... something under it. Raker leaned closer, ignoring the twin voices telling him that no, he couldn't see better by getting a foot fucking closer, and yes, he definitely could fall the fuck off if he wasn't careful.

He couldn't help it. He could see it now. Rising from the water like some ancient god, reborn into the world of men. His jaw slowly dropped and the flask was forgotten. His whiskey-soaked mouth was suddenly dry, as something huge even at this distance stomped its way from the river, onto the land, and stopped before the assembled group of Etzos gangers.

They were all as quiet as him. Not even muttering among themselves. Mayhap a breathed curse or divine declaration. But mostly... silence. Just like him. Seeing what they never had before, standing in front of them and gleaming from head to toe.

Softie walked up behind him, and didn't speak for a change. Raker snorted and shook his head, wide-eyed as a child, all thoughts of disciplining the stripling ganger forgotten.

"Fuck me. Can you believe this?"

"... wasn't what I was expecting."

The wonder painted on Raker's face was obliterated in an instant.

That wasn't Softie.

[Kasoria]

Fozzie Tatum liked the cold. Which wasn't to say he enjoyed being cold, because what sort of lunatic did, but he appreciated how... easier, things became for him when the weather turned. During the Hot Cycle, he felt like nothing less than a beached whale or lumbering ox. Every pound of his obese frame seemed to weigh extra heavily on him, soaked with sweat, dragging him downward with each step. His energy, his vitality, his very breath and sanity was scorched away from his soul by the relentless heat. He didn't even have the will to fuck every day, Fates preserve him for such a thing.

But the cold? Fozzie liked the cold. Everything tightened up during the cold. There was nothing sweating or soaking or baking. Just that invisible gnaw of teeth on your skin, keeping you awake. A subtle, nameless reminder from nature of what the next world began with: cold. Endless cold. Fozzie sat on the back of the wagon with a fur coat over his shoulders, but every few bits, he breathed in the shards of ice in the air, and he smiled.

Business was brisk during the Cold Cycle, too. People stayed indoors. Fucked and gamed and snorted and smoked and staved off the murder of the world going on beyond their doors. It was a profitable time for him.

And it's about to get even better.

"Somethin' funny, Uncle?"

Fozzie shifted his leonine head over to look at Exley, waiting at his elbow with a jug of warm wine waiting. Edmond was with his lads, standing with the men who worshiped him as their leader. That had been their way since they were boys, Fozzie had noticed. Exley was all about talking, whether it be schemes or threats or negotiation. Edmond was about action. He enjoyed hurting people. Exley just enjoyed making money; violence was just the best way he knew how.

Their uncle had seen potential in both of them. Molded them over the last decade into his tools, his enforcers, his voice and his fists across his lucrative little manor. Now they were surrounded by loyal men on turf that had been bought and paid for, waiting for... something Etzos had not seen in a quite a while. It had taken an arc of careful finagling, negotiations and country-spanning communications to make it happen. But tonight, all of it was worthwhile.

"Jus' thinkin' of the future, boy. Top an old man off, would ya?"

"Yessir."

Wine sloshed into a golden cup and Fozzie's piggie eyes flickered around the dark rooftops. Patches of shadow moved there in ways unnatural to wind or rodent. The boys had lookouts, just to be sure. He appreciated the foresight; he didn't want the surprise to be ruined until the moment he chose. He smiled again and imagined the shock-waves, seismic as an earthquake, when he whipped the cover off his secret weapon like a stage magician, and all the underworld knew the asset he had under his control.

Gotta keep it that way, though, he reminded himself, not losing himself in his reverie too much. One had to remain practical, after all. There'll be plenty looking to steal it away. Or him.

Fozzie shrugged internally. He didn't much care what the creature had hanging between its legs, as long as it was as ferocious and brutal and loyal as the agent he'd gone through had-

"Somethin's happenin'." Exley said suddenly, and Fozzie glanced up into his nephew's bearded, bemused expression. "Somethin' by the water..."

The water that had no hint of boats or swimmers upon it. The river that was split between depthless black and chaotic, sparkling, shifting reflected silver. Nothing moved on the surface save that riot of binary color, and yet... Fozzie could see it, too. A disturbance. A new element to the scene, and it didn't take him long to see it was coming from-

Under the water. Rising, rising up from the depths.

The whole courtyard inhaled as one as the source was revealed, and then was silent. So quiet even across that expanse of ground that they could hear the distant working of Etzos Prime as well as the heavy, scraping footsteps that slogged out of the river and onto the bank. Gouged their way through the mud with claws feet. Fozzie Tatum slid to his feet and pushed and shouldered his way through the gaggle of staring Reaver-Cleavers.

He wasn't a tall man, and some of them were big lads. But he could see the creature plain as day even from the back of the crowd. At least its face.

He stopped at the head of them, just as the monstrosity did the same. Only half a century of being a sporting man, a veteran of a thousand high stakes games, kept the shock, the horror, the sheer undeinable amazement of what he was staring at from swallowing every other emotion on his face. He looked down at the naked claws this thing had for feet, then up... and Fates, that seemed to take forever, until he stared into-

"You are... Tay-Tum?"

Eyes that his species had first seen in times long lost to history books and learned men. That only deep and subconscious memories, buried in genes and darkest blood, could hope to recall. But such were the strongest memories. Every countless arcs after that era, Fozzie felt the urge to flee course through him. A gaze towering and majestic and inhuman and unearthly pinned him like a snake would a mouse and he had to clear his throat and-

Fuck's sake, snap out of it!

-remind himself he was the fucking boss, here.

"And you'd be Jorg." The little human peered around the monster and quirked an eyebrow. "Enjoy your trip?"

Jaws lined with teeth opened to reply, and yet it never came. Slit-like nostrils quivered as something was detected by them. Something powerful enough to steal the attention of the beast. It looked over and beyond Fozzie, past the gaggle of gangers behind him, and Fozzie followed it's gaze, more than a little annoyed that the moment had been ruined-

Until he found the source of the interruption. Stepping from the shadows with all the silence and ease of his beloved cold itself. Any other time, Fozzie heart would have skipped or stopped outright, knowing what the presence of this man meant. But tonight, with his new associate...he grinned. Grinned with all the malice and accumulated hatred of fifteen arcs spilling out of the gesture.

"Well, I'll be fucked. My lucky night."

[Kasoria]

More bloody climbing.

The beggar consoled himself with the fact that it would be climbing, as opposed to scaling. Which is what he'd been doing earlier than season, scurrying up and along buildings like a bloody squirrel, on two occasions, no less. Now it was just a rickety old ladder in front of him, running from the alley behind the dead house to the flat, square roof.

Men were up there, waiting for him. They didn't know it yet, of course. Just like they didn't know that he'd already spotted them as he approached.

They're not even hiding it, the killer had thought as he'd watched the Reaver-Cleaver's file into this rude landing, a clutch of rundown or abandoned buildings, saved from desertion only by the maggot-eaten wharf jutting out into the river. Apparently Fozzie had business with the owners, since he'd not seen anyone other than gangers since sundown.

The gleaming hunks of metal on their belts were obvious enough. Weapon and badge both, the cleavers of their group's name, displayed for all to see.

Makes it easier to keep track of you, too.

The killer had been a beggar for most of the day, instead of the quiet, stoic figure that looked up at the top of the ladder, unseen in the high darkness. By the side of the trail leading down from the city, an offshoot of the main road, winding down to this dying cluster of businesses. He and a handful of other rag-swaddled derelicts. Some of them stinking of booze and lice and infection and madness; some apparently whole in body, if not in mind, and playing up their situation to wheedle more money from whoever passed.

Which was not many, in fact. The beggar had barely a handful of coppers in his bowl. He'd been chilled to his bones and wet through his cloak, no protection from the merciless elements that a city afforded a man. Most of the other scraps were gone by nightfall, tottering and limping away back to the city, like scavenging ants going back to the hive.

But the last beggar was still there when the wagons came rolling by. Shook his bowl as the men jeered and a couples tossed empty bottles and coins that landed in the mud.

He had not cursed back. He had not failed to scramble for them, as a true beggar might. He endured their empty words as much as he did the fulsome chill and deluge of Nature, a far more dangerous opponent. He did all of these things, because he knew that watching and waiting would pay off.

And so it has.

Kasoria watched the men assemble. He watched the two men climb up to the roof of that building, and not even hide their presence there. Every few bits one or both walked around the edge, peering out at the city and the river. One of them seemed to be pissing more than the other, as far as Kasoria could tell. He waited for the last visit, and then he started moving.

It was barely two bits from where he squatted to the wharf. His trip lasted more like ten. He moved from shadow to shadow, cast by hedge or copse he did not care, and whenever something lurked on that roof-

Kasoria dropped to the ground. Made no moves, did not even breath... until the faceless, peering figure moved on again, and he had the change to continue. They weren't inattentive, that much was clear. They just weren't that well-practiced. They should have had one on either side, minimizing the directions an enemy could approach from unseen. Instead, both men were focused inward, and occasionally looking around.

They want to see what's coming.

The little man shook the thought from his mind and finished flexing the fire back into his limbs. First the roof, then the musing. He started to scale the ladder, taking each rung as quietly as he could. He tested his weight on every slat of wood before he shifted it. Held the ladder from the sides, not the rungs themselves. When he was halfway up, one hand went to his back... and his karambit was gripped between his teeth.

He'd be using it soon. Better to have it close to hand.

"Ah, c'mon, Raker. Ain't no-one comin'. We'd see 'em."

Kasoria was nearly at the top when he heard the voice. He flattened himself against the wall as best he could, making himself part of it as slow footsteps approached. A young voice. A new recruit, probably. Lookout duty was hardly one handed out to valued members. He gripped the ladder with his left and took the karambit with his right. The man was stopping... probably looking down right now... probably ready to-

Tsssssssss

Oh fuck me, again?!

A golden stream of stinking waste answered the question for him. Tumbling down from the roof like some incredibly well-focused waterfall. Kasoria peered up... and saw the boy was right next to the ladder. A plan formed and was decided on in the time it took the boy to do his business, ending it with a contented sigh. The assassin shifted his hold on the evil little weapon, and as a set of breech buttons were fastened-

"Huh?"

Softie turned back as he heard a whistle. Hadn't he? Sounded like it. Coming from close, too. Coming from below. More curious and incredulous, he leaned down and peered off the edge of the roof and-

Timing.

Distance.

Depth.

Sift away all the other aspects, and Kasoria knew that's what it came to. That and the experience, the cold blood, the rings of callousness around your soul that made it all possible. Softie leaned over, and he had his timing, a split-trill before he saw the raggedy figure, clinging bat-like to the side of the building. The karambit flashed like a claw attached to his arm, and he'd judged the distance well-

SHUNK

-curved blade sinking into the boy's throat, tearing through arteries and pipes and his voice box, because Kasoria had the depth nailed, too. But damage wasn't all he was after from the blade sinking deep. It also gave him-

Leverage. New one.

Kasoria grunted and yanked back with his knife-arm, heaving the dying, cut-throat cutthroat (gotta remember that) off balance... and off the roof. Softie was already clutching at his gushing throat as he fell, as if heedless of the fatal drop. No, his mind was on his body, the agony racking it, the scream that would not come and then he was flying, soaring, plummeting-

Kasoria didn't watch him land. It was squelchy, muted by the mud and distance. He kept moving, climbing the rest of the way, up onto the roof... and the other sentry was still there. Sipping from a flask and then he froze-

But... didn't turn. The assassin frowned, cocking his head for a moment like a curious dog. Then he heard it. That rising ripple of awe, like the patter of distant birds taking off, then dying as they fled from flight into the sky. Perfect silence. No laughing or gossiping like gangers were want to do (worse than fishwives, in his experience). No shouts of warning or idle chatter.

Kasoria kept moving closer, not bothering to hide the sound of his approach anymore. The sentry would likely think it was his friend, and he still didn't turn. Then the assassin could see why... and for a moment, he and his target were as one with awe.

Well, I'll be-

"Fuck me. Can you believe this?"

Vri's fucking Cock, Kasoria had almost forgotten about him. His eyes did not see, his ears did not hear, his mind barely comprehended his own feet on this roof. All of him was as focused on the figure below as everyone else. This creature that dragged itself from the icy waters, clad in naught but leather and scales, rest of its body still and cold save for something long and bulbous swinging despite being lashed to its back.

What the fuck are you doing?

Kasoria inhaled. He tasted the air. Felt it freeze the hairs in his nose. Fill his lungs and burn with that savage freeze. All of it shocked him, stunned him, released him. He felt the roof and his feet and the dagger in his hand. Without even thinking, he reversed the grip he had on the weapon. Before even looking, he knew where to strike on the squatting, spellbound figure in front of him.

The assassin cocked back his arm, chambered his first punch, and then he spoke. The lookout froze. Raker began to move.

Far, far too slowly.

The karambit was a fine weapon for him, or rather, how he fought. With the curved, cruel blades almost jutting out from under his fists, Kasoria's punches barely needed to change when he held the knife. Only now, he could aim for those soft spots and know that far more than blunt trauma was being inflicted. His first blow, for example, was a punch to the carotid artery, on the side of Raker's throat. Normally, such a vicious blow, executed by a man like Kasoria, would have probably knocked the ganger out. Starved his brain of air. Stunned him into silence and confusion and no matter what, left him open for whatever other evil Kasoria had planned.

But with the karambit in hand, it was so much more.

The blade punched into Raker's throat from the side, not once, or twice, not thrice, but four times. As often as a veteran like Kasoria could punch and chamber and punch again in a handful of trills... which was quite a few. Blow after blow, ripping the wound larger, transforming a cut into a ragged whole that didn't gush or spurt blood. No, it released it, a flowing river of the stuff down Raker's shirt.

The ganger died coughing and choking, with his hand around his precious cleaver. He didn't even have the strength to raise it when Kasoria threw him backwards into the shadows from whence he came. He died there, om his back, trying to lift a weapon he could barely feel anymore. His killer did not look back. His eyes were on the ladder, and he slid down it with a face like granite.

He knew what that creature was. He'd soon one before, long ago, and heard-tell of their kind before. A handful of times, he'd entertained the notion of fighting one. Even in those private, indulgent moments... he had to admit to himself, he'd come off badly. It doesn't matter, his mind whispered as he strode around the side of the building. This is the job. He is the job. So you do it.

The monster smelled him before he seeing him. By the time he stepped from the shadows and into the fierce, flickering light of the braziers, all eyes were on The Raggedy Man. The monster didn't react when Fozzie spoke. Kasoria locked eyes with it, and he did not look away. He was not his ancestors past, his relatives from hundreds, thousands of generations ago. Just as the beast ignored Fozzie, so too did Kasoria. Instead, he kept his eyes pinned to the thing that stepped around the fat racketeer, pulling a club from its back because it knew a predator when he saw one.

Glad that's out the way, Kasoria thought as the Ithecal looked him over. Right. Let's get to it.

Continued here

[Zip]

caspa

Knowledge.........

Blades (Karambit): Curved Blade Can be Used to Hook and Pull
Blades (Karambit): Complements an Unarmed Combat Style
Discipline: Bury Your Fear, and Do The Job
Stealth: Minimizing Sound When Scaling a Ladder
Stealth: Identifying Lookouts, and Avoiding them
Unarmed Combat (Ki'Enaq): Carotid Stun

Non-Skill Knowledge:
NPC Fozzie Tatum: Plans to be More than just a Local Villain
NPCs Efram and Edmond: Tatum's Lieutenants, Leaders of the Reaver-Cleavers
Etzos Underworld: Reaver-Cleavers Don't Allow Anyone to Carry a Cleaver, That Hasn't Earned the Right To

Loot....................

Nein

Consequence......

o_o

Renown..............

Nah

Experience...........

10

Nothing that has been said in the last 10 or so reviews doesn't cover this entry. The actions is impeccable, the pacing is sublime, and that little view into the would-be victim's life before the knife comes down is always welcome. Enjoy your points.

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