Chapter Text
Gabriel stared up past his undulating hands—claw, hand, fingers: five, four, three, two, one. Smoke, hand, claw—at the disappearing stars. Dawn was still an hour or two off but there would be no more sleep for him tonight. His head was crowded with thoughts and questions that shouldn’t be answered; that needn’t be answered. Ever.
But he still asked them.
Through his tumbling thoughts wove a pair of blue eyes, warm as the sky he reached towards at the end of each night. Eyes that belonged to a man that had decided to rudely introduce himself back into Gabriel’s life and had got himself pushed back out as unceremoniously.
He dropped his hand down onto his face and rubbed his tired eyes. At the very least he should arrive in Tamor by the afternoon. A warm bath and a proper bed would be a nice change of pace before he had to find himself some work.
A flash of white, in the treetops high above his camp.
He catches the movement from the corner of his eye. The silent, white wings of an owl, beating once before it caught the Northern wind and was gone from sight.
Gabriel narrowed his eyes as he stared at the empty tree tops.
A gust of wind funnelled into the clearing as he sighed and sat up. It carried ice on its breath and he shivered, hastily tugging his coat on. Shaking out his long scarf, Gabriel stares down at it for a moment, both hating himself and the world for needing to wear it. He brushed over a tear in the fabric and grimaced, retrieving his sewing kit from his travel bags and setting about repairing it in the last of the pre-dawn light.
When the sun finally did show up, it bathed a dew-frosted forest in its golden light. Gabriel looked up at it sceptically as he pulled himself into Midnight’s saddle. Probably not a good sign for the weather ahead. At least the sky will be blue today, a tiny voice in the back of his mind piped up and was promptly strangled for bothering.
Without any other surprise meetings on the road, nor any more sightings of the owl, he made good time, arriving at Tamor in the mid-afternoon. A biting wind blew over the crossroads town on the edge of the Northern border, bringing with it the promise of winter and early snows. To the west lay the ocean, and the promise of a contract headed towards the shipping port. But he dreaded having to winter in a town that stunk of fish. The only other option once he was there was boarding a ship to the North or South and that was out of the question. West of Tamor lay the wilds, and eventually the desert, Gateway to the East. A crossing was easier in the winter, but not something he particularly fancied since he would still have to wear a coat and a scarf for three months. Besides, nothing particularly interesting was happening in the East.
So, it was to the north he would go.
Way in the distance lay the mountains that formed the border to the Northern Kingdom. It was mostly just sheep grazing land from Tamor to the foothills, then lawless bandit country on through the passes. They used to be garrisoned by Gibraltar’s forces, but things seemed to be on the decline for the North Kingdom. The last decade had not been kind to it.
Gabriel figured that he should have no problem picking up some mercenary work here, the town was bustling with merchants and farmers, all trying to sell something before the winter set in.
He dismounted Midnight and walked her through the Southern gate, eyeing the guards on the battlements of the town wall. They didn’t seem to care about a hooded stranger and waved him in with the rest of the crowd of farmers and sellswords. Once he was in the safety of Tamor’s walls, he made a beeline for the cheapest-looking part of town in the hope that he would be able to stretch his budget. Once he was there however, he took two steps into the first bar and turned right back around again, checking himself for lice that had surely infected him for merely setting foot over the threshold. He tried a couple more and concluded that even though funds were low, he still had standards.
He sighed and resigned himself to the streets a little closer to the centre of town. A cosy, yet busy tavern named The Honeyed Tongue was where he finally managed to get a small room and meal for a reasonable price. After stabling Midnight, he called for a bath the barkeep downstairs barking at her children to fetch some hot water.
When it was ready, he sunk into the hot water with a deep sigh. The relief was short-lived thought, and he hissed in pain when his left leg decided that it didn’t like the water and disintegrated into ash. That hurt. But it had happened before, and Gabriel steeled his mind and willed himself back together again, drawing on what lay beneath the surface.
The beast in the pit of his stomach raised its sleepy head—
And he soothed it back to sleep with little panicked gasps, drawing his newly formed leg up to himself and wrapping his arms tight around it, afraid the beast might hear the thumping of his heart. Not here. Please not here, he thought.
Hold yourself together, man. Gabriel almost laughed.
But he settled again. After that, he washed himself quickly, grimacing at the scars this body came with, and the aches and pains of his ever-shifting skin, mottled brown with death and fire.
An inheritance he had never asked for.
He dressed slowly, in a clean shirt and pants, pausing as his hands ran up against the massive scar that split his chest in two. Right down the middle, sternum to stomach it stretched and pulled, lighter than the rest of his skin. Unsurvivable, a wound like that.
Yet here he was.
He didn’t dwell on it. After pulling on his coat and boots and wrapping the scarf across his face, Gabriel trudged downstairs. The barkeep gave him directions to the merchant guild in town and the popular mercenary tavern. She said he should be able to pick up work, “strong lads like you, always in demand.”
The merchant guild yielded little. There were a couple of small farming caravans going south, but they either didn’t pay enough or didn’t need the kind protection he offered in the first place.
The tavern was similarly unhelpful, but Gabriel decided that he may as well stick around for a couple of hours, just in case. After brooding at one of the corner tables—hood up, eyes down, ears perked—for half an hour, a boisterous couple of mercs enter the bar.
“—you don’t know that. Me, I’d rather not make this journey my last, thank you very much. The money is good but I ain’t suicidal. Three ales, the strong stuff,” the voice called out. Gabriel peeked up at the woman shouting. The accent tickled something in the back of his mind, but he doubted it was his own memory. In any case, she didn’t look like anyone he had seen before. Short and stocky, she wore hard leather armour, had a short sword strapped to her side, and a shield on her back. Flanking her were two other similarly dressed mercs, both long and lanky and sporting the same bushy moustaches. They looked like brothers, maybe even twins.
The group took one of the empty tables close by to him. One of the Moustache Twins took out a set of cards from his pocket and began to deal, muttering to his companions about the onset of winter. After two rounds, Gabriel decided to get up, walking over to their table. He easily towered over all three of them and decided he probably cut a rather menacing figure.
The woman was not fazed in the slightest. She squinted up at him, “you mind?”
Gabriel shrugged, “mind dealing me in?”
“Mind giving me your name, Stranger?”
He paused, perhaps a second too long, before saying, “Gabriel.”
The woman’s eyebrow raised a touch, then she patted the empty seat beside herself, “alright then, Gabriel. I’m Char, that’s Seb and Will.” Char pointed to the two moustached twins in quick succession and he promptly forgot which one was which the second he took his eyes off them. “Gotta warn you, Will doesn’t play nice and I play dirty.”
Gabriel’s lips quirked up a little from underneath the scarf. “And Seb?”
“Oh, Seb’s the worst gambler on the planet.” She waved his concerns away and grinned wolfishly. “What about you?”
Gabriel shrugged, counting out a couple of his final coins. “I seem to do ok. Someone taught me the ropes a long time ago.”
Three rounds later and Gabriel had a sizable coin pile in front of him, wondering if he could simply gamble his way to prosperity. It was a strange thing, to rely on the shadow of a memory to guide his body and mind. He knew how to gamble, he just didn’t know how he knew. It was the same way he knew how to ride a horse, swing a sword (not that he needed that skill anymore), could speak three of the less common languages on the Continent, and was exceptionally good at hand-to-hand combat. There were numerous other skills he had discovered that his body knew how to do, yet his mind did not remember learning. It often dragged Gabriel back into the temptation of wondering who he had been before.
Apparently, a man who had known a strange blonde noble named Jack.
Had they been good friends, or something more? Gabriel had a preference for men (not that he had been able to do anything about it, being the monster he was), and he wasn’t going to deny that Jack was handsome—albeit young—but had the past Gabriel also had the same attraction? It wasn’t as if anything could even happen without the… what was inside… destroying anything he tried feeling any kind of intimacy tow—
“Check,” one of the Moustache Twins muttered, “cut and dry.” He threw down his cards as his moustache twitched up in a satisfied smirk.
Shit. That’s what dwelling on the past got him. Gabriel sighed and lay his own cards on the table, unable to match the hand. He pushed his coins towards the Moustache Twin with a begrudging nod.
Char gave her own cards a disgusted look as she tossed them onto the table. “You drift off there for a second, stranger?” she directed the question at Gabriel. “Something on your mind?”
Definitely not a pretty blonde. Instead, he sighs. “Work. Haven’t had any luck finding something that’ll pay well.” He looked mournfully at the last of his coins, now being pocketed in the Moustache Twin’s coin purse.
Char raised an eyebrow. “We’re in the same sinking ship then. There should be far more caravans passing through Tamor to the South this time of year. And there’s barely anyone going North this winter neither. Not that you’d want to. But…” she trailed off, tapping a finger on her mug of ale while staring into the contents.
“But?” Gabriel prompted.
Char looked towards her two companions, both of who shrugged, so she leaned forward, dropping her voice to a whisper. “Ever since the King has… been as he has, trade to and from Gibraltar’s been difficult to say the least. Lot of the merchant caravans are refusing to brave the mountain passes, this is before the snow sets in too, even with the knowledge they’ll get record prices for their goods once they get to Gibraltar. Most farmers are too poor to pay for protection, or just don’t have a harvest worth taking North. It’s been the third or fourth year in a row the yield has gone bad. What makes it doubly strange is that there’s nothing much coming down from the North either. Trade is strangled. Gonna be a hard winter for everyone.”
She shakes her head. “If you ask me, things ain’t been the same ever since the Knights were disbanded. The Northern King’s army is full of thugs and thieves, and he acts as if he ain’t concerned about that fact. Probably cause he ain’t got cause to be.” She spits on the floor, mouth twisted. “If Talon aren’t careful though, what’s left of the city will starve by the end of winter.”
Gabriel scoffs. Talon rumours had been flying across the lands for years now. A decade to be sure. But they were just rumours. Tales of the Vampire, the Witch, and their dreadful servants that sow the seeds of chaos and darkness. Tales told in the wee hours of the night, designed to frighten children into coming home and obeying their parents. “You’re telling me that Talon control the city? You know they’re just a rumour, right?”
“Rumours are always based in truth. Laugh all ya want Stranger, but you won’t catch me goin’ anywhere near that place again. We just came from Gibraltar and you’d have to pay me triple my normal rate to convince me that a trip back to that cesspool is worth it. Even then, I’d still probably say no.”
“That bad, huh?” Gabriel’s eyebrows knit together, still sceptical. Rumours had been flying about the Northern Kingdom for years and years, why should there be any foundation to them now?
“Aye, it’s that bad. Gibraltar used to be the shining city of the North, now it’s full of beggars and rats. People starving in the streets, being taken away, kidnapped. Necromancers and alchemists using dark and illegal magic on helpless victims. And the King does nothing.” Char shakes her head, eyes deadly serious. “Better off dead than going to that place.”
Gabriel sat back in his seat, crossing his arms. “So, say that Talon is real. Why would they make a move now, why not just stay in the shadows?”
“They are the shadows.” She gulps that last of her ale and then looks in disgust at her empty cup. “The Knights used to keep the Continent in check. Kept the rulers ruling and justice just. They weren’t perfect, but they were a whole lot better than nothin’. With them gone, Talon was able to move into the open. There ain’t no shortage of low lives who were willing to cause violence for a pretty penny.”
“Like you or me, for example?” Gabriel deadpans.
“Don’t get all high and mighty on me, Stranger. I know I sound like a hypocrite and I ain’t about to paint myself as a natural do-gooder, but I also ain’t about to sell myself to a side that considers human experimentation with dark magic to be a perfectly amicable past time. I’m a sell sword that protects caravans and farmers. I ain’t gonna fight in no war.”
Fair point. “Right. Apologies.” Then he blinks. “War? What war?”
“Well, here’s where I get to the speculation. I ain’t sure of it, and for now it’s just a feelin’, but I’m sure there’s something brewing.” Char looks around the quiet taproom, then leans closer, her voice lowering even more. “I only know this because… well, we were hired by a lesser noble visiting the castle. He was trying to petition the king for lower tariffs and for an apparently compulsory draft to take fewer of his able-bodied soldiers. And that’s not all. Because there, in the castle grounds, I saw… well I saw her.” Char shuddered.
“Her?” Gabriel frowned, leaning in closer despite himself.
“The Widowmaker,” Char hissed. “The vampire.”
Gabriel snorted, a well-meaning smile showing up beneath his scarf. “Now, I know for a fact that she’s definitely just a fairytale. Vampires don’t exist.”
But monsters like you do? the voice in the back of his head chimed in.
He ignored it.
Char narrowed her eyes and leaned in again. “She’s no fairytale. She’s real, and vicious. The King’s puppet master.”
Gabriel tried to resist rolling his eyes when a thought struck him. “Why are you telling me all this anyway?”
That caught Char off-guard, “uh… well, I’m not exactly a Talon sympathiser.”
“Oh?” Gabriel raised his eyebrows higher.
She saw the look and narrowed her eyes. “Look, I’m deciding to err on the side of moral good for once.” She let out a breath and scratched her nose, looking at him out of the corner of her eye. “Besides, you look like someone who might be able to help.”
Gabriel inhaled sharply, almost choking on his own breath. He looked like someone who might be able to help? Did she have eyes? Had his mottled, scarred skin somehow miraculously repaired itself? Did he not wear a hooded black coat that gave off a don’t-talk-to-me-ever vibe?
As far as stereotypes for the ‘side of moral good’ went, Gabriel was pretty sure his image emphatically occupied the other end of the spectrum.
For all she knew, he could be a Talon sympathiser.
Char must have seen his incredulous look because she had the sense to look embarrassed. “If you’re not, it’s none of my business, but you were mighty curious about the situation. Besides, I think you ain’t as scary as you want to seem.”
Well, she had him there. It wasn’t as if he wanted to appear like this. More like, he’d been shoehorned into the role for the last ten years and had got to a point where he’d decided to embrace it.
He sighs. “I just want to know whether there is any work going. I don’t give two shits about the political situation of the city. The Northerners can do what they want.”
Char’s eyes hardened. “Tch. Then I wish you all the best with your travels, Stranger.” She signalled to the bartender for another drink.
“If you want work,” one of the Moustache Twins spoke up, “there’s a caravan heading out tomorrow. Rush job through the mountain pass before the snows set in. Char won’t take the job because it’s headed to Gibraltar, but last we knew the merchant was still on the lookout for hired muscle.”
“I ain’t got no business returning to that place,” Char said with a grimace. “You’re more than welcome to take our place.” There was a pause while she studied him. “What kind of merc are you anyway? You ain’t got any weapons on you. You a sorcerer?”
Gabriel laughed. That’s what he sold himself as, but he didn’t have a drop of magic in him.
He did however, have something else. He slowly got up from the table, glancing down at his gloved hands, shifting skin beneath the leather. Broken lips stretched across his face in a parody of a smile as he flicked his eyes back up at Char.
“Something like that.” He gave them a lazy wave and began to walk away. “Thanks for the game and company. Hopefully it’s as good on the road to Gibraltar.”