Secrets of Arkana Fortress (30 page)

              Breena craned her neck to see what they were both huddling together over. ‘Oh… you’re showing him the Bullwark blood test, eh?’

              Her father stood up and sniffed the air. She couldn’t help but think that there had been a sudden change in his attitude since arriving in Traseken after all these years – it was as if the blast from the past had awoken a slumbering part of him. Whether she liked it or not remained to be seen.

              She looked around and saw San Kiln suddenly stand upright. He yanked his hood backwards and flicked his whiskers about, his small nose flexing wildly. ‘What is it?’ she asked awkwardly.

              He raised a paw and continued on his nasal quest. He stood for a few moments before hissing loudly. ‘Something bad is coming this way. I don’t know what the hell it is, but it bloody well doesn’t smell right.’

              ‘That’s helpful,’ Kelken chimed in.

              ‘Can you hear anything, San?’ asked Breena.

              San Kiln paused and moved his ears around slowly. They arched back against his head and his pupils grew. ‘Assassins,’ he breathed.

              ‘You what?’ Kelken stepped up to the seething cat, putting a hand on his shoulder. ‘What the fuck would people want assassins in this place for?’

              Breena placed a steady hand onto the bow on her back. ‘I’m surprised you can smell anything through all this charcoal and smoke.’

              ‘A smell like this is strong, even through these odours.’ San Kiln composed his face, slowly rubbing his fur back. ‘We don’t want to oppose these people.’

              ‘Why? How many are there?’ Breena asked.

              Kelken grabbed her hand that was poised alongside her bow and pulled it back to her side. ‘We don’t need any more confrontation… use stealth, remember? Low profile?’

              Since when was he the voice of reason?

              San Kiln moved up to them both and lowered his voice. ‘I smell magic.’

              The air froze at the mere mention of it.

              ‘None of us are magical… we can’t compete with that,’ stated Breena, shaking free of her father’s grip. ‘Where are they?’

              San Kiln purred harshly as if he had a razor in his throat. ‘A street away, and coming in this direction.’

              Kelken swore then grabbed the pair of them by the arms, dragging them without question to a broken alcove of a building that looked like it used to be a tavern. A gaping hole was carved into one corner. He jumped up and through. ‘Come on.’

              Breena allowed San Kiln to go first, which he did with as much grace as a feline should. She clambered up slowly and ended up rolling along the floor. ‘Oh man… this place is a shit-hole,’ she grumbled as she eased herself up, fiercely dusting off her clothes.

              The inside of the old tavern was barely recognisable. Kelken walked alongside an old wooden bar, shattered glass strewn over it, and old patches of what he assumed to be spilled blood staining the oak top. A thick layer of dust, black as the night sky above them, caked the entire place like a depressing blanket.

              ‘Wow, this place could use a lick of paint,’ San Kiln coughed. He crouched behind the outer wall and peered through a crack, keeping an eye on the street for the mysterious group of people.

              Breena adjusted her stance and looked at the state of the place, sniffing and blinking slowly; the intake of smells wrinkled her nose. ‘I bet this place hasn’t had many customers lately.’

              Kelken dusted off a small part of the bar and leaned his elbows on it, staring at the shattered glass that was once the alcohol cupboard, remnants of bottles lying on their sides like bodies on a battlefield. ‘This place… I think it was the Morlak Tavern.’

              ‘Morlak… was that someone’s name?’ San Kiln asked roughly.

              ‘Yeah. The landlord was Morlak Ralph – knew him when I was a teenager. He must be long dead by now I imagine. If there was one thing he would never abandon, it was this place.’ He surveyed the room with a dejected look, his chocolate brown eyes glazing over with reminiscence. ‘I used to drink here after a day’s patrolling. My usual was a pint of Traseken Tipple – the old ale that our pubs and taverns were famous for. Beautiful drink it was.’ He picked up a broken pint glass and twisted it, a sliver of moonlight from a hole in the ceiling refracting through the imperfect mould. He tossed it onto the floor and let it smash into tiny pieces. ‘Nothing can save this place.’

              San Kiln, having remained alert, hissed suddenly and waved a paw at them. ‘Here they come – top of the street.’

              Kelken elegantly slid over to the wall with Breena following closely behind. ‘Let’s look.’ He angled his view to peer up the street.

              This was more than confusing.

              There must have been about 11 or 12 of them, all being led by a heavily armoured figure with a crossbow on its back. The size of the crossbow was definitely intimidating; reaching at least five feet in length, and the wooden frame was as thick as a Bullwark’s thigh.

              Breena rested her weight against the wall. ‘Fucking hell that’s a big crossbow,’ she exclaimed with a hesitant gasp.

              The others remained silent, their eyes locked onto the rest of the group, which was made up of females dressed in flexible-looking plate armour. Each of them carried a sword on their belts and a small hunting bow on their backs. They were obviously some sort of highly trained group. Kelken discounted them being mercenaries as they were too uniform - it was a small group of elites. Who were they? What were they doing here in a broken city?

              It was then that the leader halted and raised a hand for all behind to follow suit. The jade green helmet rotated from side to side, something having caught the figure’s attention.

              ‘Have they seen us?’ asked Breena in a hush voice.

              ‘He’s smelled us,’ uttered San Kiln hesitantly, his nose wriggling about.

              ‘So it’s a bloke underneath that armour then?’

              ‘He’s a feline.’ San Kiln covered his face with his paw. ‘And he fucking stinks… something’s not right with this one.’

              Kelken licked his lips as he let out a heavy breath through his nose. ‘If he can smell us then he knows we’re here.’

              San Kiln laid his other paw on the wall. ‘Not necessarily, Kelken… I’d be impressed if he can distinguish us through that helmet as well as all this smoke and rotting waste.’ He rested his head on the wall. ‘Hopefully he’ll think we’ve been and gone.’

              Breena felt her heart stop as the helmet fixed on the wall they were behind. She moved slowly out of view of the hole they peered through. ‘Fuck, he’s looking right at us.’ She grabbed her dad’s arm.

              San Kiln watched intently as the helmet was taken off with strange looking paws, almost human in shape. What lay beneath the helmet was a collection of tabby and black fur, a pair of scarred ears, and a head too large for any normal feline.

              ‘What the hell is he?’ San Kiln asked without direction.

              Neither Kelken or Breena knew the answer – they were as bewildered as he was.

              ‘He looks like a human-feline hybrid, but he certainly doesn’t smell like one.’

              ‘What does he smell like then?’ asked Kelken.

              ‘He smells exactly how he looks – fucked up. I can’t make heads or tails of it – it’s a smell I’ve never encountered before.’ San Kiln pressed his paw against his nose again. ‘The closest thing I can liken it to is death.’

***

‘Kelken? Are you sure?’

              Leskin removed his hooded cape and threw it on the back of the nearest chair. He looked at his mentor, Rolden Trist, with a firm and knowing glint in his eyes. ‘I am certain of it, Rolden.’ Well that was something; Leskin never referred to his mentor by his first name.

              Rolden furrowed his eyebrows and walked over to the stone fireplace to his right. He leaned against the mantelpiece and rested his chin in his hand, staring into the mirror at his dishevelled appearance. His scruffy brown hair fell around the bottom of his ears with only a few grey hairs taking over his roots. He massaged his pure white goatee and sighed through his nose angrily. His eyes ached from the cold of the room, their icy colour growing dim.

              ‘And he helped you take on a group of a dozen angry civilians armed to the teeth?’

              Leskin nodded awkwardly, not knowing what this name meant to his mentor.

              ‘It can’t be him,’ Rolden muttered.

              ‘He wore a Templar medallion around his neck.’

              Rolden lowered the hand from his chin and balled it up into a fist, his knuckles proceeding to rap the marble mantelpiece. ‘That wily old shit’s still alive then…’

              ‘He was a Templar I take it?’ Leskin took a seat at a small table set into the corner of the small meeting room. The room itself was fairly dilapidated, with peeling wallpaper, a dampened fireplace, rusty door, and woodworm-ridden floorboards. The creeping decay of Traseken had reached further into the city’s core than some had realised.

              ‘Kelken Lexos was my partner back in the day,’ Rolden explained with melancholy echoing in the reaches of his voice.

              Leskin leaned forward, resting his folded arms on his knees. ‘One of the best was he?’ He was expecting some tale of glory from the past.

              Rolden raised a silencing forefinger into the air. ‘No Templar was considered better than his or her comrades. We were all equal in skill.’

              ‘But he was good; I saw as much back in the streets,’ Leskin replied with a childish excitement in his voice. ‘He took on their leader and a majority of the rest.’

              ‘Taking all of them down on his own is certainly impressive,’ Rolden mused.

              ‘Well he wasn’t completely alone. There was a feline and some red-headed girl accompanying him.’

              Rolden craned his head around and stared at Leskin with half closed eyes. ‘A crack shot with a bow and arrow was she?’

              ‘Actually yeah. How did you…?’

              ‘Her name is Breena Lexos – his daughter. I haven’t seen her since she was so high.’ He lowered his other hand to about four foot off the ground. ‘I bet she’s a looker nowadays.’

              Leskin screwed up his mouth. ‘Never really looked, I was too busy on the floor having my ass kicked.’

              ‘It’s good that you don’t cover up these things with lies. Being humble is a good trait to have, y’know.’

              ‘Thank you, mentor,’ Leskin said with a nod of pride. ‘I’d be dead if it weren’t for him though.’

              ‘I can imagine. The one thing I will say about Kelken is that he has got to be the luckiest man I have ever known.’

              Leskin tilted his head. ‘How so?’

              ‘He had a tendency to get in over his head when it came to a fight – got a bit clumsy and hot-headed.’ Rolden walked away from the fireplace and straightened a painting on the opposite wall idly.

              ‘He didn’t seem it earlier.’ Leskin started to remove his gloves and lay them on the table carefully as if they were precious heirlooms a thousand years of age.

              ‘I’m hoping he’s changed a lot since he left.’ Rolden finished with the painting and started to adjust the curtains.

              ‘I doubt he’s here to stick around, sir.’

              Rolden’s face scrunched up and he began grinding his teeth like a millstone. ‘I failed to convince him to stay last time he and I met… this time I’m going to succeed.’

              Leskin stood up and took his belt off. ‘I don’t see how you’re going to do that one. Traseken isn’t exactly a gold mine anymore.’ His cheek stung and he flopped back onto his chair, Rolden’s fist having zoomed up on him like a raging boulder down a mountain side.

              ‘Regardless of the physical mess this city has become I still love it like no other. It is my home, your home, even the home of all those criminals out there,’ he boomed with highly composed anger. ‘The Traseken Templars are sworn to protect and maintain this city… it is an oath for life – you know that. We protect its citizens from whatever evil lurks outside the walls, and inside.’ Rolden took a moment to crack the knuckles he’d just used on the young Templar’s face; his weary gaze settling on Leskin’s reddened cheek. ‘We answer to nobody except the King.’

              Leskin rubbed his face, the redness growing brighter than a candle. ‘The King is a young man… even younger than me. His father died too early.’

              ‘He was assassinated.’

              ‘I know that. I didn’t mean to put any blame on his highness for his own demise. My point is that the young King has been given an entire city to rule over and he’s barely half way through puberty.’ Leskin picked himself up and rested against the table. ‘We’re losing people faster than we can recruit them.’