Blood and Honor

Wrapping his cloak about him, Mordan walked along the waterfront at an easy pace. Across the river, invisible through the dank fog, was the dead-gray mist that marked the edge of the Mournland. Newcomers to Karrlakton were often nervous when the evening fog rolled in, fearful that the Mournland might have crossed the river; but it hadn’t moved since the inexplicable destruction of Cyre more than four years ago. It had stopped at the borders on the Day of Mourning, and there it had stayed ever since; nobody knew why. And, as Mordan knew from his own experience, the dead-gray mist of the Mournland was neither cold nor damp.

The docks and warehouses he passed spoke of better times. Beneath the grime and peeling paint they were large and solidly built, a relic of the pre-war days when goods flowed through Karrlakton from Cyre, the Talenta Plains and all points south and east. Many of the buildings still showed damage from the War—some were reduced to rubble, while others had only a few scorch-marks on their walls.

When the Last War broke out, the strategic location that had served Karrlakton so well through centuries of peaceful trade became its greatest weakness. It had been pummeled by wave after wave of attacks from across the river. Despite this—or perhaps because of it—the city had served as a major military depot. Almost every unit posted to the Cyran front or the Talenta Plains had passed through Karrlakton, which made it a logical place to look for traces of the lost.

Peace had done little to restore the city’s fortunes. Cyre was no more, and the Valenar elves pressed hard on the Talenta Plains. Things—strange, twisted, unnatural things—sometimes came out of the Mournland and tried to cross the river. Not as often as rumor maintained, but often enough to be a danger. River trade collapsed as merchants began to move their goods by safer overland routes. Adventurers, fortune-seekers, and bandits flocked to the waterfront district as an easy stepping-off point for expeditions across the river and into the Mournland; in their wake came everyone who could sell them equipment or services—legal and otherwise—and many others who thought they could turn a profit.

The Black Dragon was one of several waterfront taverns frequented by these freebooters. It had a reputation for being dangerous, but in truth only the obnoxious, the inexperienced, and the foolish came to any harm there. The authorities regarded it as a nest of vipers, but the Royal Swords seldom ventured into the waterfront district.

“Repent!”

The howl of the street-corner prophet was barely recognizable as a human word. He stood glassy-eyed on a crumbling jetty, facing across the river toward the unseen Mournland, bellowing into the fog. Blood and pus oozed from the fragments of colored stone that were hammered into his forehead, and from the mystical patterns carved into the flesh of his arms and torso. The symbols were repeated on his tattered clothing, in paints of various colors and in other, less readily identifiable substances. An open book hung around his neck on a heavy chain, its pages blank. He wore a spiked helmet of vaguely hobgoblin design, with a battered and jawless skull impaled on the top. Cones of incense glowed dimly within its eye-sockets, their smoke mingling with the fog.

“Beware the Dragon Below!”

Perhaps, in his mind, he saw a congregation, hanging fearfully on every word as they cringed at his feet; in reality, here were few people abroad on the waterfront, and they paid him no heed.

“Lo, Great Khyber did loose his breath upon the wicked world, and there opened in the heart of sinful Cyre a vast chasm, glowing with the power of His vengeance! And dissolute Cyre was no more! And so the rest of this immoral world hall fall before His wrath! Repent and believe, for only the faithful shall be spared!”

Despite his ragged clothes, the man raved and gestured with he authority of a high priest—which, perhaps, he thought he was. No one knew why the Mournland had stopped at the borers of Cyre, and no one knew whether it might spread across he river as suddenly and unexpectedly as it had appeared. The morbid, the fanatical, and the unhinged came from far and wide to be close to this looming, unknowable threat.

Mordan turned down an alley between two warehouses, heading away from the dark and turbid river. He stepped over the huddled bodies of sleeping beggars who sheltered between the warehouse walls, and over the occasional body whose blood mixed with the greasy water in the cracks between the stones, indicating a more permanent sleep. Although his gait was still brisk and confident, he kept his hand on the hilt of the bejeweled rapier that hung at his side beneath his cloak. His slitted eyes swept the shadows as small, half-seen shapes skittered out of his way.