(This story follows the events of The Sickholm Saga - if you haven’t read that yet, I’d suggest doing so beforehand, as otherwise parts of this may not make sense.)
Chapter 1
Iyoforeayo sat at the far end of the long table in the grand hall of Castle Sickholm. It was late summer in northern Ascalon, and it would be another two months before the city fell to the capital. The feeling of unease at Sickholm’s future had already begun to settle in amongst the town’s citizens, as they watched their allies dwindle around them. Nokiaman had led the people of New Ibbish north to Kalros. The engineers of Sudkuste had seemingly vanished. And Gabrosen, the undead commander of the high elves of Onodrim, once Sickholm’s closest ally, had fled the continent as well.
Except now Gabrosen was back, sitting across the table, dwarfed beneath the sprawling map of the north that decorated the room. And he was asking to die.
“You’re sure about this?” Iyo asked, as he rose from his chair and drew the Shadknife from its scabbard. The hesitation, the outright horror that he had felt when the commander first reappeared from the tunnels under the mountains earlier that evening with the unsettling request, had all but faded. As they had spoken over the past few hours it had slowly transformed into something new. Excitement. Bloodlust.
Hunger.
The cloaked skeleton barely had time to respond before Iyo was striding across the table of the grand hall, blade raised, bearing down on him. In that moment, the thieflord couldn’t have stopped himself if he’d wanted, and as he plunged the Shadknife through Gabrosen’s throat so hard that it pierced through and splintered the chair behind him, the bloodlust intensified. He could feel the Shadknife drinking its fill, sating this new thirst that had arisen. And as a sinister smile crossed Iyo’s face, he thought for just a second that he saw a look of doubt and fear flash across the skeletal visage, just before the life (once again) drained from Gabrosen’s body...
***
Iyo snapped awake, sitting bolt upright in his bed. He’d lost count how many times he’d had this dream since he’d arrived in Auru; so many that he had started to question whether the whole thing had been a dream in the first place. ‘No, it was too real,’ he thought to himself whenever the notion crossed his mind. ‘But aren’t most dreams?’
Then why was the Shadknife locked in a chest, deep in the corner of the thief’s basement? Whether the murder had been a dream or not, the terror Iyo felt upon waking every time was very real - and the notion that the sword could lead him to do such a heinous act (and enjoy it, for that matter) was more than enough to convince the thieflord to keep it stashed away under lock and key for awhile.
Not that he’d had much use for the sword as of late anyways; since his arrival in Auru six months ago, Iyo had not set foot on the battlefield, let alone outside the city’s walls. As he rose from the bed and strode to the window, he looked out as the light snow continued to blanket the already covered roofs of eastern Auru, and knew that he would not be getting any more sleep this night. He sighed and turned to fetch his boots, knowing he would soon arrive at the same conclusion he always did in this situation:
‘I need a drink.’
Moments later, Iyo was walking out onto the snowy cobbled street, pulling his cloak tight around himself to protect against the cutting winds as he turned and looked back at the stately manor he now called home. The Prophet Ajaxan and the Aurulians had been more than accommodating to the Sickholmian refugees; Iyo himself had received a lordship and a sizeable plot of land along one of the city’s main thoroughfares. Even still, the thief had decided to take an apprenticeship under the town’s Head Architect, Dafyish - in part to pay back the Aurulians for all they’d done, but mostly as a way to keep himself busy...to keep his thoughts from wandering back to…
Gabrosen. As Iyo made his way down the road towards the harbor, he thought again of his old friend, and the crushing questions of reality bore down on him once more. Gab had told him he planned to lead his people to Auru as well, and Iyo was sure that once he arrived, he would be reunited. But by the time Iyo made it to Auru, the undead commander and his people had vanished without a trace. Some townsfolk remembered seeing the elves around town one day, and then gone the next...others claimed they had never arrived in Auru at all. The whole ordeal had only served to create more questions and uncertainties.
Iyo rounded the Spire - the massive structure at the heart of Auru that pierced high into the clouds, and looked out over the harbor as he made his way up the stairs of the southern road. A few cloaked fishermen peppered the docks, and a pair of deckhands (who had no doubt drawn the short straw on the graveyard shift) unloaded crates of supplies around them. Iyo paused for a moment to watch one of the fishermen react to a tug on his line, reeling in a massive northern salmon that the thief knew would be on the tavern’s menu tomorrow. ‘Speaking of...’ he thought to himself as he continued down the south road.
The tavern was nearly empty - not a surprise, considering it was the middle of the night - but fortunately for Iyo and the few other denizens that sat about the room, silently hunched over their bottles, the place remained open til dawn. As the thief entered, the bartender flashed a smile at him and reached for the bottle of whiskey he knew Iyo would be ordering.
The thieflord found a corner table across the room, and sat alone with his drink. In the months since his arrival in Auru, the whiskey had done wonders at blunting the shame he felt from his people. Sure, the Sickholmians had seemed happy with their new home, and were treated well here… but Iyo knew, deep down, they resented him. Resented him for abandoning their home, for uprooting their lives and bringing them to a strange town where the man that had failed Sickholm now bore a lordship he didn’t deserve.
“May I?” Iyo returned from his thoughts to look up at the source of the question - a cloaked man that now stood at his table holding a bottle of mead, gesturing at the opposite chair.
“Uh. Sure,” Iyo replied, not particularly wanting the company, but also not wanting to be rude to a fellow Aurulian. The man smiled (from the way his hood fell, this was the only part of his face Iyo could see) and sat across from him. A moment passed, and the two men sipped their drinks in amicable silence. Then the man spoke.
“There will be an attempt on the Prophet’s life tonight.”
The thief froze, looking up from the brown liquid in his glass to the hooded face that had uttered the words almost matter-of-factly. “Excuse me?”
“I can’t say much more,” the man said in a now hushed tone, “but they mean to take the staff he wields. You must not let that happen.”
“Who’s they?” Iyo whispered back, suddenly on edge. “And Ajaxan has an entire city guard protecting him, I don’t think-”
“I have a feeling your city guard will be otherwise… occupied,” the man said as he took a final sip and rose from the table. Iyo stood to meet him, eyes burning with suspicion, wishing for the first time in awhile that he had a weapon within reach. “Who are you?” the thieflord barked at him.
“Do not fail us, Iyo of Sickholm.”
The thief’s eyes went wide. “How--?” was all he managed to utter before the man turned and bolted for the door. “HEY!” Iyo shouted as he ran after him, attempting to grab the man’s arm before he made it out onto the street. He reached out, fingers just barely brushing against the man’s worn cloak before the whiskey caught up with Iyo and he stumbled. Cursing himself, he darted back to his feet and out the doors of the tavern to see…
Nothing. Iyo staggered onto the snowy cobble road and looked in every direction, but the man had vanished. Before the thief could even process this, the sound of the town’s alarms filled the air. Across the road, the spruce and iron doors of Auru’s War Guild burst open, and General Xovious, the weathered leader of the Aurulian army strode out. Iyo had only seen the general in passing before, had never spoken to him, but now the two men met each other’s gaze from across the road.
“The walls have been compromised!” the general growled at him, drawing his sword from its scabbard. “I’m getting reports of breaches all over town - someone on the inside had to have betrayed us!”
A million thoughts and questions streamed through Iyo’s head, not the least of which concerned the grim warning he’d just received. Was the Prophet really in trouble? If the man was right about the city guards, then--
“HEY!” General Xovious shouted at him from across the road. “Don’t just stand there like an idiot, get a weapon and get back here!”
“I--” the thief started into the explanation of it all, the warning, the strange man… but realized how crazy it all sounded, and decided better of it. Instead, he turned and ran back down the stone road towards the Spire and bore east, knowing what he needed to do. General Xovious was right - he needed a weapon.
He needed the Shadknife.
