Slithering Maze 13: Symbols in Blood and Smoke

Basysus, 27, 1278: Flophouse in the Old Quarter District, Arth Prayogar. Nothing like a little breaking and exiting…

Author’s Note: Kingdom of the Slithering Maze is a serialized fiction story that is a part of a collection called the Windtracer Tales. It follows the adventures of Tela Kioni and her crew dealing with expeditions in and around the world of Awldor. There they hunt down lost, and possibly lethal, relics of the Ancient Order, a near-mythical kingdom lost to the centuries old cataclysm, the Great Collapse.

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Previously: Tela, Skarri, and Atha track down the old flophouse in Old Quarter where Garrik was meeting his clients. There they found everything Garrik suggested and so much more. From scented candles to severed fingers and a dubious oozing book, there was no doubt this was the lair of a Fateweaver cult. Among the macabre trinkets, they uncover an interesting map and even more interesting metal medallions. Ones that may hold a clue related to the ancient Iraxi artifact they’re hunting down. Which could’ve been useful to take a close look at, had they not been ambushed the death cultists they wanted to avoid in the first place…

Basysus, 27, 1278: Flophouse in the Old Quarter District, Arth Prayogar. Nothing like a little breaking and exiting…

Say what you will about Fateweaver cultists, they’re durable. Sort of like a pale cockroach with no sense of humor.

The cultist spat out a sharp yell, jerking his hand away after I slammed the door on his fingers. I threw open that door with every intention of running around him for the stairs.

Suddenly, a throwing knife missed my eye by half a finger. A second snagged on my vest, then clattered to the floor.

“Hey!” I snapped, reaching for the dagger at my belt.

Skarri deflected a third knife with her saber as a second cultist lunged for my throat. I ducked, reversed my grip, then drove the pommel of my dagger into his guts. Air slammed out of his lungs like a collapsed bellows. He coughed out a wheezing curse before Skarri grabbed him by the collar, throwing him into a nearby table.

The table overturned, spilling the cultist, papers, and ritual clutter across the floor. This included the Fateweaver’s oozing black leather book, which hit the man with a wet splat. He flailed, yelling, but the book seemed delighted. So at least someone was happy.

I waved to Skarri. “Let’s…”

“Down!” she hissed, brandishing her saber.

I ducked into a wide crouch as her saber flashed overhead, deflecting a stained oak cudgel from the first cultist. The pallid man staggered backwards, wary of his ruined fingers.

“I’ll cut out your hearts!” he screamed and swung again.

I sidestepped to the right, avoiding the blow, then brought the pommel down on his broken fingers like a hammer. He yelped, clutching his hand as he tried to step away.

“Qa’tash!” Skarri hissed sharply, battle cry snapping the air with a pop.

She sliced her saber in a vicious arc, slashing past the man’s chest while I kicked at his ankle. The cultist stumbled forward, then swung with a mindless shriek for my head. I darted to the side, ready to parry with my dagger, but Skarri got to him first. She sliced the cultist across the midsection, then shoved him off the blade to the floor like an old sack of grain.

“Damn death cultists. They just don’t know when to quit,” I panted while I glanced around the chaotic room. “Down?” I asked Skarri with a deep breath.

That’s when I noticed a thin red line sliced along one of her forearms.

She pressed a scale-palmed hand to the wound. Mouth pulled into a tight line, she shook her head.

“Cut me when I grabbed him. It’s nothing,” she hissed sharply at my frown.

Abruptly, the cultist Skarri had thrown into the table scrambled to his feet. He threw off the oozing book, then lunged at us with a dagger. With a quick hip twist, the temple guard lashed her tail at him like an arm-thick, muscular whip.

It slapped the human’s chest hard enough to snap a chair apart. The force of the blow took the man off his feet, bending him double. The cultist collapsed to the floor in a heap and let out a coughing moan.

“Yes, down,” Skarri hissed. “That third cultist is still lurking around here, somewhere.”

I glanced out the door, up and down the short, dark hallway. There were the stairs but also a battered window that overlooked the front of the flophouse. No ramp down, which wasn’t a surprise. The stairs were probably added to deter any nosy centaurs. Skarri slithered for the stairs, while I peered out the dust-stained window to the street below.

Twin lanterns painted flickering yellow islands of light onto the dark, moonlit street. It looked quiet. Then I saw a dark red-robed figure sprinting from a nearby building to ours.

It was the third Fateweaver.

“Hells,” I swore. “Run!”

We ran.

Down the loose stairs, we charged into the bottom floor hallway, headed for the back door. A shadow rushed out from behind the staircase, grabbed me by my vest and pulled. I’m short and nimble, but that also means I’m easy to toss like a rag.

The world turned sideways as I was hurled into a nearby wall. I hit the rotten wood hard, knocking the breath out of me for a second. But the moment my boots hit the floor, I instinctively side-stepped in time to avoid a knife in the side.

“Hey! I’m still using those ribs!” I wheezed.

I sliced out with my dagger, cutting a bloody gash along the man’s arm. That earned me a punch to the face, which staggered me backwards, seeing stars. Then Skarri was instantly there, easing me behind her, saber already moving. My attacker gurgled when she sliced into him, before he hit the floor in a bloody heap.

“Wait,” I murmured. “He’s not dressed like a Fateweaver.”

Just then, a trio of hooded lanterns were uncovered, bathing the hallway in a sickly, yellow light.

“Windtracer,” sneered a thin, reedy voice from behind, between us and the alley door to freedom.

I turned around fast, dagger in one hand, bag of metal medallions in the other. Behind me, Skarri hissed out a low, frustrated sigh.

That reedy voice belonged to a tall, bone-pale human woman dressed in the usual Fateweaver outfit. Blue-black, bruised shadows ringed her eyes.

She sneered at us, toying with a dagger in her spidery fingers with unnatural grace. Behind her stood a gang of muscle, mostly humans with a minotaur or two, in reeking, ragged clothes. Some had knives, others axe handles, one even carried a meat hook. They looked like the sort of folk that would gleefully slice open your ribs for lunch.

“Oh, today just gets better and better,” I murmured. Then I raised my voice with an overly cheery smile.

“Yoi T’kalo to you, too, lady,” I said, adding just enough of a bow to the cultist for sarcasm, before my words turned brittle. “Always good to see that even a death cultist can make some loyal little friends.”

“Tela? Must we antagonize the angry mob?” Skarri sighed slowly.

All the Fateweaver did was reply with a wicked grin before cocking her head at us with an air of murderous cruelty. She probably thought she was drawing out the kill for more fun. Cultists were like that. They loved drama like a slug loves a storm puddle.

“Plan?” Skarri asked in my ear, voice even.

“Cut, kick, or slap anything that isn’t us and run for the door?” I replied, flexing my grip on the dagger.

Skarri let out a sound that landed somewhere between a hissing chuckle and an exasperated mutter.

“Kill the women. Cut their life threads,” the Fateweaver rasped in a voice like grating bones.

The closest human thug rushed at us, brandishing an old axe handle. Skarri slipped up beside me, parried the handle, then sliced him across the front in the blink of an eye. Two more brutes took his place, with three more not far behind, crowding in on Skarri.

I kicked one in the knee, sliced the edge of my dagger along the arm of another, then went back-to-back with Skarri. Another thug swung his club, but I managed to parry it at the last second. The force of the impact rattled all the way to my shoulder. I swung the bag heavy with the metal medallions at him, snapping the thug’s nose. The human spiraled back with a sharp yell.

“Hells and high water,” I groaned, feeling the ache crawl up my arm as the gang closed in for the kill. I crouched a little, blade ready, jaw tight.

Just before I could stab anyone, the back door slapped against the wall with a bang as Atha charged inside. With a snort and mild murder gleaming in his eye, he smashed into the gang like a horned hammer. I almost cheered.

Two thugs bounced off the rotten wooden walls. A third was hurled backwards, crashed through the rickety stairwell banister, then lay still. The rest split like a river, desperate to escape Atha’s horns and muscle without turning their backs on us.

Sadly for them, it was a narrow hallway. There wasn’t anywhere to go.

“Now!” I yelled, smashing the bag of metal medallions against the knee of the closest idiot with an axe handle. He, or she, I really wasn’t sure, screamed and fell. I got an elbow to the jaw for my trouble that made my head spin.

“Qa’tash!” Skarri spit out, slicing into the nearest thug as she slithered in sync with my steps, behind and to my left.

I side-stepped to my left, ignoring my splitting headache, and swatted at another attacker trying to grab my shirt. A few snarling jabs with my knife made him rethink that idea. Skarri slammed the pommel of her saber across the back of his head, knocking him out cold to regret his choices.

Naturally, that’s when I noticed something out of place.

“What the watery hells is that?”

A neatly folded piece of parchment half fell out of the man’s belt pouch, wax seal glinting in the dim lantern light. The seal was stamped with a symbol I didn’t recognize. I saw another thug, also stretched out unconscious, who had a similar note. The seal looked official, not some trumped-up thieves’ guild. My guts clenched. These weren’t just some thugs-for-hire.

“Hired muscle rarely carries around permission notes to mug people.”

I slapped another thug across the mouth with my medallion-heavy canvas bag with a wordless snarl, then snatched up the folded note. That got stuff into a belt pouch for later, then darted aside as another knife slashed for my throat.

After that, everything became the worst kind of brawl. It was a tangle of fists, horns, blades, and pain all blended into a smear of motion. I lost track of Skarri, Atha, even myself. My heart hammered against my ribs, chest burning for air.

Then we were through to where we first came inside.

I stumbled out the door to the alley, bruised and sore, gulping down a bitter mix of rancid air and prairie dust. Skarri slithered out, wiping blood from her saber on a rag. Atha was a step behind, fur mussed but grinning.

She looked over her shoulder at the flophouse, then along the alley while we hurried for Grayclove Street, words a nervous hiss.

“The woman? That Fateweaver? Where did she go?”

I shook my head, finally getting enough air to talk.

“She ducked out the front after Atha charged inside.” I gave the minotaur a sideways glance. “Where were you?”

He strained his green shirt with a shrug.

“A few tried to sneak in the back way to surprise hyu.” His snout split into a cheery grin. “They gotz surprise instead.”

Wooden whistles suddenly slapped the cool evening air with shrill shrieks. I raced to the end of the alley while the other two glanced around in alarm.

A quartet of centaurs carrying lanterns galloped down the road toward us. Dressed in sandy-colored brigandine armor and gray tabards, I recognized the stamped hoof and scales emblem they wore.

“Hell and high tides! Someone called the Trade-Wardens,” I snapped. “Quick! Out the other side—run for the inn!”

I charged past Atha and Skarri. Atha didn’t have to be told twice. Skarri slithered after me but still gestured back the way we came.

“But, we could…?”

I emphatically waved my hands while we ran.

“Do what? Explain we broke into a murder cult’s den, then started stabbing because they were about to gut us first? Nope. Not the time.”

At the far end of the alley, I glanced both ways, then waved for them to follow me. My mind drifted to the medallions in the canvas bag and the note I’d swiped off a thug.

“We’ve got enough trouble already.”

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Windtracer Tales is a work of pure, unashamed fiction. In fact, it considers itself rather fancy and quite proud of itself. Names of characters, places, events, organizations and locations are all creations of the author’s imagination for this fictitious setting. Any resemblance to persons living, dead, or reanimated is coincidental. The opinions expressed are those of the characters and should not be confused with the author’s, since the characters and the author tend to disagree a lot.

Also! Windtracer Tales and Windtracer: Adventures in Awldor is written with much respect to Starfarertheta and their work on the other half of Awldor.