10th of Ash, 4621
Through the halls of the Citadel, Arkash ran in his true form. It was dark out, most of the Halamire that patrolled the inside were retired for the night. Through the winding passages of stone, Arkash made his way to the window he sought, leaped to the windowsill, then clambered out with the grip of his claws. he scurried quickly to the rooftop, using the bricks to aid his ascension until he threw his form to the rooftop.
With ease, he scaled the tiles and scurried toward the back wall of the fortress. As he came over the highest point of the rooftop, he slid down the sloped tiles, bent his knees, and kicked off the building with a hard thrust of his legs. The air whistled in his ears as he plummeted to the ground beyond the outer wall, curled his chin to his chest before impact, and rolled with his momentum against the packed earth. Some scrapings and kicked-up dust became attached to his burlap rags as he kicked off the floor, ignoring the strain in his knees.
He didn't stop; he had a mission, a target.
He thought briefly on the face of the man he hunted while he ran through the night, toward the town. Mateo was his name. An accomplished squall mage, a defender of the fortress that was instituted for the sake of fighting invading archetypes and Hyr'Norai. No doubt, he was skilled in combat. If Arkash got his way with the kill, there would be no combat. He was an assassin, not a mercenary. The element of surprise was his greatest strength, and the mages of Valtoria would soon come to understand that.
The thud of his claws on the packed earth road that led into town steadily shifted to the thrum of his bare heels and the roll of human feet on earth. None would see his true form in town,; there was too much at stake to be caught by the likes of a commoner. He'd promised her that Mateo would cease to be; that she wouldn't have to see him again if she just nodded her head. Arkash intended to make his words a reality; he wouldn't lie to her.
He didn't fully understand why it was that he put so much stock in his word to her, but he had his suspicions. Was it perhaps tied to the reason that he wept for her when he learned what Mateo had done to her? Did the burning rage he carried for that mage have anything to do with what he felt for Eira? His irrational behavior all came down to that, he knew beneath it all. He didn't really stop to think why he felt the way he did, he'd only felt that way for one other before, and that man had vanished. Was he just attracted to the few and far between that didn't find him repulsive? At least he had standards.
A shake of his head dismissed his thoughts and he put his mind's eye back on his prey while he ran through the arid climate. He'd taken a sniff of Mateo's belongings, as delivered by Eira. he just had to run through town for a whiff of that same smell, track it down, then kill them by any means at his disposal.
As he came to the town's outer wall, he kicked off the surface and swung his hand to grip the edge of the rampart. Using his upper body strength, he lifted himself up and over the ledge. After clambering to his feet, he leaped off the wall and began to run along the flat-edged rooftops of the various multi-shaped homes. He was unstoppable, not just because he was exceptionally mobile outside of that frozen hellhole, but because his dranoch hunger all but drove him wild with murderous intent. he normally had a good handle on his blood sickness but had decided that night that he'd let his monster out of its cage. Mateo was deserving.
As he vaulted over rooftops and rolled across landing spaces, that same smell met his nose, or something suspiciously close. Arkash blinked, then changed his direction mid-skid with a kick off the floor and barreled toward the source of the smell. He had to cross the road to get there, so he lept from the second story, braced his legs for impact with the outcropping of a first-story building, rolled on touchdown, and threw himself off to roll upon meeting the dirt road. He kept low as he rolled into an alley across the street and sprung out in a powerful leap that saw him kick off the wall to his left to get some height, then the wall to his right, then the wall to his left. Each subsequent jump threw him higher and higher until he rolled atop the roof of the left building before he started running again, leaping rooftop to rooftop on his way to Mateo.
As the scent grew stronger, Arkash slowed his roll and jumped into the nearest alley. Under the cover of darkness, he reached into his pocket and began to shape the mass of hardened blood there into a primitive dagger, long enough for the purpose he needed. Concealing it in his burlap pants, he walked out onto the street with naught but the light of the moon to illuminate him. Arkash glanced skyward before he set his sights on the mage and his companion. Mateo, the mage in blue robes was seen handing over some sort of document to the larger male in his company. Arkash squinted but didn't particularly care what was going on. All he knew was that his target was right there in the middle of the street, along with some other unknown fellow who'd... Obviously lived a life of comfort by the quality of his garbs and the volume in which he ate.
It really was a shame that he didn't have his gun anymore, but perhaps...
Arkash began to breathe quickly to feign exertion, then ran from the alley. "Ser Mateo!" He called as he ran out into the open, then began to jog toward the pair. At once, Mateo turned to the source of the sound with a suspicious squint. His companion did the same.
"...Slave?" he asked. At least the man recognized him.
"You know this one, lad?" Asked the larger male with something of an amused grin.
"Yes... Derek's his name, one of Raphael's lab mice."
The fat man laughed, Mateo grinned.
Arkash slowed, feigning rapid breath. "I have a message...!" he called, then leaned forward as he slowed to a halt just a couple of feet from the mage. He put both hands on his knees and leaned forward to further accentuate his exhaustion. His heart was beating quickly, but not because he was tired. Arkash's stamina was incredible, he wouldn't tire for some time.
"What is it, boy?" Mateo asked with some amusement in his tone. Though he must have known it to be important if a slave was sent at that hour. Evidently, he felt very safe meeting an exhausted slave in the dead of night in his friend's company. He even extended a hand to help Arkash, but the Rathor already knew that the mage had no problem touching slaves.
It was only as he took the mage's hand and lifted his head to flash his fangs that Mateo realized the danger he was in, but it was already too late. Arkash was much too quick, and he'd already closed the distance. Quickly, he drew the blood dagger from his pocket with his left hand, stepped forward, and drove the blade upward into his ribs, ripping through the diaphragm, lung, and heart in one strike. "That's for Eira, cunt," he spoke in the mage's ear as the man leaned forward, gagging and sputtering his blood all over Arkash's shoulder. The man to Arkash's right let out a startled cry at the sudden burst of violence, and Arkash quickly cast leech with his right arm, pulled a blood-shaped blade from Mateo's chest, and thrust it straight into the fat man's throat, destroying his trachea in one movement.
Both men of superior status gargled and choked on their own lifeblood. The fat one fell to the floor with the crude sword piercing his neck all the way through, While Mateo expired, draped over Arkash's shoulder. At once, the dranoch moved the body of the mage to the alley beside them and threw the man to a darker corner before he went back out into the open street, took the fat one by the feet, and dragged him back into the same Alley. In the cover of darkness, he began to assume his true form and maneuvered the two fresh bodies into a less visible space in the dark of the sub-urban alley.
Finally, some real food. Arkash began to dig into the bodies of both mages, ripping through skin, muscle, and bone with incredible ease. His serrated teeth and jaws made short work of their flesh, and he fully sated his blood sickness and then some on their bounty of gore. He even ate through their clothes, as they were made of materials that he could digest. The only thing he didn't devour was that letter Mateo had given to the fat man, now a mess, painted in their blood.
That thing, he briefly inspected while suckling the blood from his claws. All the bloodstains, both in the dirt and on his burlap clothes, he cast sway upon. They immediately evaporated into gas, and he drew the mist in claws before solidifying it all in his palm. With ease, he swallowed the material. The letter, a sealed envelope, pressed with some wax thing as if that made it more important somehow. He couldn't read, but there was no writing on the front to indicate who it was addressed to. Arkash shrugged, then pocketed the letter before he stood in the otherwise quiet, empty alley, and began to make his way back to the slave pens.
Eira wouldn't have to fear Mateo's abuse anymore, she was safe. Arkash smiled to himself on the journey home, thinking he'd done right. Alas, he'd murdered two good men for crimes they hadn't committed. Eira's lies pulled the wool over his eyes, and he believed every word she'd said.
