The Old Temple Lodge?s new knight-sergeant made Seamus uneasy.
She makes everyone uneasy, he reasoned, as his brown mare whickered and danced away from Kria Abdruin, crowding Malcolm Parr as he rode alongside. The ex-assassin made a displeased noise, and Seamus rolled his eyes at Malcolm as he urged his horse back to the center of the cobblestone street. The faint light of dawn filtered through a gray sky as the three knights wound their way through the old, narrow streets of the city?s southern neighborhoods, past bakers, a handful of vendors readying their wares, and few others.
If Kria noticed Seamus? attention -- or his mare?s -- she showed no outward sign. Her head never turned to either side, poised carefully in her saddle, letting her eyes alone move over their surroundings. Her two black pupils, jagged like a pair of nine-pointed stars, were hard to make out in her speckled pink eyes, but in the dim light Seamus saw them ticking side to side, taking in movement in windows, doors, and under the eaves of the buildings they passed.
She was dressed in oiled black leather armor, with a line of filigreed silver buttons and clasps running up either side of her torso. Like Malcolm and Seamus, Kria wore both a knife and a pistol on her belt, a breech-loading affair that used the thumb-sized bullets slotted into the strap of her holster; unlike them, she wore two hook-ended swords on her back, one short, the other middle-length but with enough room for two hands on the hilt. Her black hair was short and fluffy, like down, and the mane of it and the silver-lined hood she had drawn up obscured the series of horns along her brow.
Their pale to navy blue skin, pink or red eyes, and horns along the hairline had people like Kria called ?blue devils,? but they referred to themselves as Xinvai. Their arrival on RhyDin?s horizon on the eve of the Architect?s death turned heads and aroused suspicion -- including Lord DeMuer?s -- but most had found sanctuary within the realm of Drasill, and Kria had tirelessly served the Holy Order of Saint Aldwin in the four years since?
?Knight-Captain.? Seamus found the pointed pupils had slid over to him; her pointed teeth were bared in an uncertain smile.
He didn?t answer the unspoken question, instead asking, ?D?you like beignets, sergeant? Our new governor makes the best in the city. Mal here?s over the moon for ?em. Or is it for her??
Malcolm snorted, not even sparing his superior a look, and Kria?s lips curled with a little more confidence. ?An early march or ride before breakfast, it is good for discipline, yes? Pestries,? she paused, briefly, on the mispronunciation, ?and powdered sugar can wait for holy work.?
Beyond a crumbling old city wall from a border long forgotten, the bells of Our Lady of Perpetual Misery tolled twenty-six o?clock. Seamus watched as Kria mouthed the numbers, counting up to twenty-six with a deepening frown, and he could feel laughter fighting its way out behind his tight-lipped grin.
Malcolm clicked his tongue. Opposite the wall was a bazaar with a well in the center, and something was drawing a crowd: two human figures, now hammering the third of a set of posters to the front wall of an old French tavern. A mostly human crowd -- only a couple of gnomish vendors among them -- looked on with open curiosity. A man and a woman approached to read the address of a local abbey along the bottom of the first poster, in small print below STAND TOGETHER and a clenched fist. When Seamus looked back at the crowd, they were staring at the three of them.
No, not the three; her. He could see Kria watching them out of the corner of her eye, but she did not dare turn her head. Staring back at them would be an offense, could start something, so she kept her face turned to the street ahead while they scrutinized her, and two of the men pressed a knuckle just underneath the eye, then to their palm as they each held out a hand. Protection against the evil eye.
Malcolm was the first to speak up, nearly a block after they had passed the bazaar. ?Breakfast would do us some good,? he said as he turned his head to look after Kria, concern written across his usually illegible features.
?Yeah? and it?s on me, alright? You always make me pay, might as well cut out the middleman? yeah?? Seamus cut a grin over to Kria, whose eyes ticked his way? then ahead. She slowly nodded her assent as they turned their horses around a corner, back towards the sanctuary of the Lodge.
((Written in connection with The Temple SL, with thanks to Jewell.))
She makes everyone uneasy, he reasoned, as his brown mare whickered and danced away from Kria Abdruin, crowding Malcolm Parr as he rode alongside. The ex-assassin made a displeased noise, and Seamus rolled his eyes at Malcolm as he urged his horse back to the center of the cobblestone street. The faint light of dawn filtered through a gray sky as the three knights wound their way through the old, narrow streets of the city?s southern neighborhoods, past bakers, a handful of vendors readying their wares, and few others.
If Kria noticed Seamus? attention -- or his mare?s -- she showed no outward sign. Her head never turned to either side, poised carefully in her saddle, letting her eyes alone move over their surroundings. Her two black pupils, jagged like a pair of nine-pointed stars, were hard to make out in her speckled pink eyes, but in the dim light Seamus saw them ticking side to side, taking in movement in windows, doors, and under the eaves of the buildings they passed.
She was dressed in oiled black leather armor, with a line of filigreed silver buttons and clasps running up either side of her torso. Like Malcolm and Seamus, Kria wore both a knife and a pistol on her belt, a breech-loading affair that used the thumb-sized bullets slotted into the strap of her holster; unlike them, she wore two hook-ended swords on her back, one short, the other middle-length but with enough room for two hands on the hilt. Her black hair was short and fluffy, like down, and the mane of it and the silver-lined hood she had drawn up obscured the series of horns along her brow.
Their pale to navy blue skin, pink or red eyes, and horns along the hairline had people like Kria called ?blue devils,? but they referred to themselves as Xinvai. Their arrival on RhyDin?s horizon on the eve of the Architect?s death turned heads and aroused suspicion -- including Lord DeMuer?s -- but most had found sanctuary within the realm of Drasill, and Kria had tirelessly served the Holy Order of Saint Aldwin in the four years since?
?Knight-Captain.? Seamus found the pointed pupils had slid over to him; her pointed teeth were bared in an uncertain smile.
He didn?t answer the unspoken question, instead asking, ?D?you like beignets, sergeant? Our new governor makes the best in the city. Mal here?s over the moon for ?em. Or is it for her??
Malcolm snorted, not even sparing his superior a look, and Kria?s lips curled with a little more confidence. ?An early march or ride before breakfast, it is good for discipline, yes? Pestries,? she paused, briefly, on the mispronunciation, ?and powdered sugar can wait for holy work.?
Beyond a crumbling old city wall from a border long forgotten, the bells of Our Lady of Perpetual Misery tolled twenty-six o?clock. Seamus watched as Kria mouthed the numbers, counting up to twenty-six with a deepening frown, and he could feel laughter fighting its way out behind his tight-lipped grin.
Malcolm clicked his tongue. Opposite the wall was a bazaar with a well in the center, and something was drawing a crowd: two human figures, now hammering the third of a set of posters to the front wall of an old French tavern. A mostly human crowd -- only a couple of gnomish vendors among them -- looked on with open curiosity. A man and a woman approached to read the address of a local abbey along the bottom of the first poster, in small print below STAND TOGETHER and a clenched fist. When Seamus looked back at the crowd, they were staring at the three of them.
No, not the three; her. He could see Kria watching them out of the corner of her eye, but she did not dare turn her head. Staring back at them would be an offense, could start something, so she kept her face turned to the street ahead while they scrutinized her, and two of the men pressed a knuckle just underneath the eye, then to their palm as they each held out a hand. Protection against the evil eye.
Malcolm was the first to speak up, nearly a block after they had passed the bazaar. ?Breakfast would do us some good,? he said as he turned his head to look after Kria, concern written across his usually illegible features.
?Yeah? and it?s on me, alright? You always make me pay, might as well cut out the middleman? yeah?? Seamus cut a grin over to Kria, whose eyes ticked his way? then ahead. She slowly nodded her assent as they turned their horses around a corner, back towards the sanctuary of the Lodge.
((Written in connection with The Temple SL, with thanks to Jewell.))