Beyond the mouth of the cave, a sandstorm raged. Granules of sand whipped through the air like razors. Corruption was soon to flood the storm in all its toxic potency. Near the start of the weather, Arkash and Izzy had taken shelter in a cave she’d indicated; somewhere safe to wait out the lethal bombardment. Only the moment they arrived, she drew her pistol on him and refused to go any closer to Daravin proper. The Badlands was where she would stay.
When he attacked, she fired with no particular aim and hit his leg, which healed in minutes. The accidental scrape of his claws to her neck hadn’t healed, but her silver blood did show itself in a trickle. Half Sil’Norai, she was revealed to be; something that was rather prestigious in Greater Daravin. She realized him a Dranoch but didn’t appear frightened or at all swayed by the fact. She recognized him, which was to imply that she’d seen more than most people ever did.
He released her out of curiosity. She had yet to make an attempt for her gun, which rested on the ground near the mouth of the cave. Whether her hesitance to collect her weapon was born of fear of the corruption or the Cardinal in her presence was unclear, but she wasn’t afraid regardless of where she might have fallen with her concerns. Her pulse was steady even though her form was tense.
It wasn’t like him to spare someone; he’d killed men and women both for feats far less severe than shooting him. For a moment, he’d been tempted to crush her throat and bite through her head, but didn’t. Why? Curiosity, he supposed. She wasn’t a threat to him and never could be. He felt invincible in her presence after taking a bullet and regenerating the wound.
She sat near the mouth of the cave, just a little ahead of him. Arkash stayed in the deeper part of the crevice, submerged in darkness. The silence between them was filled by the billowing winds of the raging storm while he considered his next move. There was so much he wanted to know, so much he wished to pry from her lips. Did he want her dead? Oddly enough, no.
He swam a moment longer in his thoughts while he stared at the one-eyed girl, then drew a deep breath through his nose and exhaled with just as much weight in his lungs. “What’s wrong with Greater Daravin?” He quizzed with a lift of his chin, as if that would steal her attention with any more success than his voice did. “You don’t want to go there, regardless of the province you end up in. Why not?”
She didn’t look at him, her gaze fixed on the rocky floor while she thought. Her silence trailed on, and Arkash began to imagine some form of hesitance in her restraint, as though she was hiding something. If her answer wasn’t anything of significant substance, then he’d know she was thinking up an alternative to reality. “…I just-” she started with a pause. “-I fuckin’ hate the Entente,” she answered with a lie, or at least a half truth. It was hard to tell which with so little information. “I hate being made t’ do stuff, ya know? And they’re all so freakin’ pushy. Like they think their magic is a good reason to step all over everything. It’s so… Stupid.”
Arkash nodded in affirmation, which she caught as she turned her head to look up at him from where she sat. “You said you don’t want to live like a serf. Don’t fancy risking the Mark?”
She shook her head, paused, then nodded. “Not for me, no thanks,” she confirmed. Arkash squinted. “Which Marks do you have?” She offered a change of subject.
“None,” he humored her. “I’m no mage.” She furrowed her brow in response as if that line contradicted what she already knew. “-You look as though you don’t believe me,” he added with a slight curl of his lips. There was definitely more to her than she let on.
She was quiet in response to his observation; she said nothing on it, and instead decided to come clean with a look of concern in her one eye. “Did it fail…?”
His brows rose in the preface to his answer, intrigued. “…Did what fail?”
Again, she was quiet; hesitant; as though she wanted to speak but held herself back. “Your nightfall initiation…” She answered at last. “It’s still in you, the Umbralplasm, I mean.”
“So you are a mage?” Arkash affirmed with a rise of his scalie brow, arms brought to cross while he leaned.
After a moment, she nodded. “…Brand, Oath, and Nightfall.”
Arkash stood upright, and her heart began to beat faster. She shifted to fully face him with her back to the sandstorm beyond the mouth of the cave. He held up both hands as if to relay he meant no harm. “Easy… I’m not after you or anything,” he assured. “It just doesn’t make sense; if you’re a mage of three Marks, what are you doing out here? You could be living a great life in Daravin Proper.”
She shook her head again. “You first,” she answered. “What are you doing in the Imperial Badlands, Rien man?”
Immediately, he regretted telling her he’d come from Nivenhai, but he’d done well to ascertain that they didn’t trust each other enough to speak on their histories. He frowned at first, then broke a smile and shrugged. “This isn’t the Candor, Izzy; just two people chatting while they wait out the storm.”
“Well, you don’t trust me. Why should I trust you?” Her eye was firmly fixed upon him while he thought in wake of the directness of her question. “What even happens when the storm is over? I’m not going with you to Daravin.” She spoke with an air of finality.
The Rathor shrugged. “…What do you want to happen?” he offered with a frown. Another long silence trailed his ask, and she exhaled while Arkash shook his head in frustration. “Just talk to me already. I’ve got a good idea in my head, I just want to be sure-”
“-Kill my gang,” she spoke at last. “…I want you to kill my old gang. All of them. That’s the only way I walk out of this alive.”
A grin pulled at the corners of his mouth while he nodded with some degree of energy. “There we go. Now we’re talking!” he spoke with a slight bow and a turn of his claws. She stared on while he continued his congratulatory tone. “That’s progress, you know? I can kill your gang; I don’t even need to know how many there are or anything of the sort. I’m a blade for hire… But that’s the keyword, hire. What do you plan on paying me?” She stared with some look of concern at the offer, almost as though she didn’t believe him capable.
“…You’re serious?” She asked, disbelief trailing on her tongue. Arkash bowed his head slowly, a gesture of gentle affirmation despite the violent darkness of the theme the conversation carried. She seemed to rouse for a moment, then looked about the belongings on her person for anything of value. A hard clear of his throat interrupted her search, and Arkash spoke again.
“I’ll take your story if it’s on the table.”
She paused her search, then looked up at him “…That’s all?”
“That’s all.” He explained with a nod.
“I mean…” She began with a trail and a shrug on one side. “Doesn’t seem fair, but I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth.”
Arkash lifted a clawed finger at that. “Obviously, I get the bodies afterward,” he added.
“Oh right…” She thought aloud with an almost wistful tinge to her voice. “Yeah,” she nodded again, “that’s fine.”
His lips formed a grin while he all but salivated at the thought. He could certainly use a hefty meal after everything he’d been through; a feast on some Badlanders seemed like the ripe opportunity to fully replenish his reserves. “We have a deal, then?” he offered with an extension of his claws, which still burned their black flame. At her hesitance to accept the handshake, Arkash directed his gaze to the flames and willed them to cease. Just like that, his body began to change, altered to blend in.
His scales darkened to their natural hue, his blood-red eyes lightened to a vibrant yellow, and the quills along the backs of his hands and neck all withdrew into the cracks of his carapace. He was mortal again, at least to the naked eye. She rose a brow at the change, then nodded her agreement. “Deal,” she said with a dialect much more refined than Arkash could recall he’d heard when they first met. Was she using a fake accent before? Or was the falsehood of her pronunciation in the way she spoke after the fact? It was too late to call her out on it, he resolved as they shook hand and claw, but he would remember to bring it up when the story of her origin came to light.
When the storm eventually settled, they were off under her direction. Additional terms to their agreement were added after the fact, such as Arkash’s requisition of ammunition for the job, and her own turn in firing his weapon. All along the way, through the cool night sands, they spoke on the nature of the task, preferred firearms, and past fights they’d both encountered in the Badlands.
Image source.
