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Order of the Black Foot Chapter 3: The Paladin Hunter For DrakeHavok By Draconicon

And Hendri can strike here, leave a firestorm to starve them out. Combine with a windstorm to carry it...maybe some flooding down south, on the Church farms...

Draconicon shook his head as he took the different pieces from their spots on the map, putting those thoughts out of his head. Tempting as they were, that strike would not endear him and his kind to the people of the Theocracy, even these days. He had to make sure that the strikes were as targeted to the paladins and the Church as possible, and with as little collateral damage as possible. Otherwise...

The black dragon put the pieces down on the map again, nudging them from one place to another as he contemplated the strikes they had available. Aside from the three big camps of the Order, he had sleeper agents all over the Theocracy. Some of them were getting close to being discovered, so there was the thought of activating them, putting them to work before their cover was blown. Better to make them look like sympathizers than to reveal that he'd taken control, and lose that advantage.

But at the same time, they'd be losing everything they had. He could just...

Just...

Draconicon groaned, rubbing his head as he sat down, utilizing the one chair that he allowed in the map room. It wasn't anything fancy, but it was left to him, and him alone. He didn't want to inflict the ghosts of the piece of furniture on someone else.

Joan...what did we start...

A ten year war, and one that was likely to keep going for another ten, at the rate things were going. Draconicon had known that the Church was too well-entrenched to be taken out by anything less than a full-scale war, and that the Theocracy was ready for that. Their order of paladins had grown exponentially since the coup, since they took power, and outnumbered whatever the Imperial Army had been able to field at their height.

Admittedly, he'd pulled together quite an army of his own. The Order of the Black Foot, made up entirely of those that opposed the Theocracy, had grown from a small military group to an army in and of itself. He had thousands of people waiting for a command to strike, and hundreds of mages bonded together waiting to help.

And yet...

He pulled the pieces back again. There was something missing. He had the power to strike. He had the strength to utterly pulverize the Church, at least in some areas, before they could mount an attack in return. He had sleeper agents all over the Theocracy, waiting for orders.

But he didn't lash out. He didn't...trust himself to.

Rubbing his forehead, he felt the ghost of his old friend rising up in the back of his mind, Joan's voice whispering in his ear.

We'll destroy them all...

Guiding words, they had been. Guiding words towards a sinking ship. Draconicon grunted as he pulled himself out of the chair, stepping out of the tent -

"My lord!"

The black dragon turned, arching an eyebrow at the approaching member of the order. The wolf went to his knees almost immediately, bowing his head. Draconicon raised a hand, and the canine was back on his feet in short order.

A quick glance over him proved that he was one of the soldier caste in the Order. The marking footprint that bound all of them to his service was placed on the wolf's stomach rather than his chest, so he wasn't an officer, nor did he have magic. Instead, he was probably one of the people that had come with a sword and had enough skill with it to not be assigned to the laborer group.

The wolf saluted as he came up, adjusting the sword held over his shoulder, and adjusting the magical goo that cupped his crotch. The dragon waited until he was comfortable, and cleared his throat, indicating that he should continue, and the wolf did.

"I just received a report that there's a mage under attack by paladins. Easily retrievable, at this distance."

"How close?"

"Three hundred miles north-northwest, about five outside of the nearest village."

"Good. Species?"

"Dragon."

Draconicon nodded. Always promising.

"Opposition?"

"Six paladins, possible archer back-up, as far as the scouts can tell us."

"Shouldn't be an issue. I'll head out myself. Get the southern teleportation circle ready; I want back-up there for when I come back, just in case we're bringing back prisoners."

"Understood, sir."

The wolf clapped his hand to his chest, but Draconicon was already reaching into the pool of magic offered to him by the bonds he'd created. The mark on every mage opened their magic to each other, but it offered all of their magic to him. An ocean of warmth and flashing lights filled his mind's eye, and he pulled as much of it into him as he could. It filled him to the brim, and he disappeared.

#

Reappearing on the edge of a river, he looked around for any sign of the impending conflict. If the scouts were right, the mage was probably running at top speed towards the borders of the Theocracy, rather than fighting, so he had thought he had time. Judging by the line of smoke a few hundred feet away, though, probably not.

Damn, damn, damn, he thought as he started picking his way through the underbrush, making his way through the shrubbery and low trees that surrounded the river. I hope that the fight's not too far along...they never win without help.

And it always felt so -

Draconicon pushed that thought away. No. They'd been intruding more and more lately, and he didn't need to look like more of a demon.

He stepped around a final tree, and stopped.

Before him, gathered around a fire that must have been started by one of the paladins' light bolts, were the bodies of the six paladins that his soldier had mentioned. Six dead paladins was not something that he got to see very often, particularly not without being involved in it. At the same time...

Draconicon let his garment stretch, the goo around his group pulling over his body and then past his neck and shoulders before running down his legs. It was a little too shiny to fully approximate a mage robe, but it was better than walking up to the stranger in nothing.

And quite the stranger he was. Wrapped in a tattered looking robe, with an arm tucked to his chest like it was injured, the other dragon walked from body to body, pulling little things off of their frames before either throwing it into the blaze or pocketing it into the robe he wore. Armor, weapons, coin; nothing seemed out of bounds for this stranger.

He was about twenty feet away when the other dragon stood up, pulling a crossbow from under the robe and pointing it at him.

"Far enough..."

"Fair enough."

Draconicon stopped where he was, keeping his hands at his sides. Not that it mattered; with the magic rushing through him, he could burn the other dragon to cinders where he stood. Or freeze him. Or teleport the both of them. Or just about anything else that might come to mind, if needed. A crossbow bolt meant nothing.

The other dragon's attire, on the other hand...

"Interesting to see someone wearing mage robes and paladin armor."

"Robes don't protect much."

"No...but neither does the armor, for the people that aren't paid to wear it."

The white dragon shrugged, but didn't shift the crossbow. Draconicon noticed that his hands didn't shake, either, despite the bandages running up and down one arm, and the fact that the paladin gauntlets barely seemed to fit. A very sure grip. Probably a great deal of experience, there.

As the silence stretched on, the stranger kept the crossbow aimed at him with one hand while rooting through the pockets of the paladins with the other. He waited, looking at the whole process, before shrugging and continuing.

"Did you kill all of them yourself?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"Impressive. So why the - ooooh, I think I understand."

"Doubt it."

"You're luring."

"...Maybe you do."

"Which means a great deal of anger. Or almost no care for your own life. Or both, for that matter."

"Stop talking, Draconicon."

"Oh, you know who I am?"

"Know what paladins say about you. Know you're hated. An enemy of theirs. Not necessarily friend of mine."

Must have been on his own a long, long time, Draconicon thought as he heard the white dragon grunt again and again. He shook his head a few times.

"I've heard of someone like you. Not much, but something. Of someone that draws in paladins by pretending to be a mage, and then slaughters them. Bodies found later, burnt to a crisp, and left with bits of armor to make sure that people know what they were. You're becoming almost as infamous as my whole group is."

"Maybe. Seems fair enough. I kill, they fear."

"Hate, I would say is the better word. They hate you."

"Yeah? I hate them, too. Fairer still."

Draconicon took a step forward, and the crossbow narrowed towards his chest. He rolled his eyes, pointing at that.

"Do you really think that'll do anything?"

"Want to test it?"

"Why not?"

He took another step, and the white dragon squeezed the trigger. The bolt shot through the air, and stopped a few inches away from his chest. He tapped it once, freezing it, and tapped it again, breaking it.

"Shooting at me does take up more time than we really have. How about you put that down, and we talk?"

"Not in the mood."

"Uh huh."

He looked at the bodies again, a solid reminder of the combat abilities of this stranger. As much as his reticence about talking did bother him, there was no denying that he was very, very good at what he did. The Order could use him...and so could he.

"You know who I am. Then you know what I can do."

"Uh huh."

"Then this won't surprise you."

With a snap of his fingers, they disappeared.

Havok - as he learned the other dragon was called - proved just how good a fighter he was on arriving in the camp. Eight men sent to the infirmary, and it had taken a good six more to pin him down and disarm him properly. Facedown in the mud, he still managed to look defiant while Draconicon did his best to convince him to talk.

Thankfully, it worked. Or at least, Havok had agreed to stop fighting.

The pair of them sat in one of the smaller tents on the south side of camp, with the black dragon drinking some coffee and the other drinking some water. He waited until he'd finished half of his cup, and then set it aside, folding his hands over his lap. The voice came again, the ghostly thing.

_He could kill so many. Teleport him into Vend's quarters, no more Vend. Revenge would be ours...

You're dead, Joan. Stop whispering in my ear._

Draconicon shook his head again, keeping it minute as he cleared his throat.

"I'm sorry for the abrupt shift in scenery, but I felt that you weren't going to listen to me out in the field."

"Wasn't done with the bodies."

"Well, you are now. You don't need to worry about salvaging things from them. We can give you plenty for that."

"Uh huh? What's the price, hmm? You think I don't know about you?"

Draconicon arched an eyebrow.

"Fine then. How about you tell me what you know about us?"

"..."

"Go on. I want to see how much you actually know."

"I know you're fighting the Church. I know the Theocracy is terrified of you. And I know that you got something that makes people...obey. Not sure what it is, but I've seen it. Makes people do things they shouldn't. Makes 'em weird."

Hmmm...not as savage as I thought he was, Draconicon thought to himself. True, Havok might have simply picked it up in the camp, but if he had seen people with the mark acting weirdly in the middle of the Theocracy or anywhere in it during his travels, then there was a problem. It meant he needed to get a little more circumspect, or the Church would figure it out as well.

He waved for his guest to continue, and he did.

"You hate the Church. Not just the Theocracy. I hear the stories. Entire villages burned down at the start of the war. Whole fields frozen, set ablaze. Where the Church is, not where the people are. Usually."

"Usually, yes. And more so, lately."

"Yeah."

"So, you know a little more than most. That's something..."

"Uh huh. So what is this, then? Trying to get me on your side?"

He shrugged.

"Seems like we have similar goals."

"I want paladins dead. And I want the Church dead."

"So do many of my members."

"No. So do you."

"In some ways, yes. I also -"

"Don't lie to me, Draconicon. I know what I've seen. I know hate. You...you really, really hate..."

More true than Havok knew, and it wasn't boding well for him, either. He leaned back, pushing the voice down in his head once more, ignoring the ghost that pushed him. She was long gone, and while there was a possibility that something else had arisen - something worse - he didn't have the time to deal with that right now.

The more he thought about it, the more he knew that he couldn't let Havok leave without making him a part of the group. The Order might have been primarily about mages, about giving them a place to be safe and to fight back, but that didn't mean that they could ignore the physical side of things. He'd already put together quite the group of soldiers for other threats, and on Hanna's advice, had started putting together more subtle fighters. Havok could easily be one of those, with his skills...

But first, he needed to get the white dragon to agree to join.

"I'll admit to that. But that's no change. You know what we stand for. You know what we're doing. What stops you from joining?"

"I'm no puppet. Won't be. Won't ever be."

"Hmmm. Now that, I suppose, could be a problem."

"Church makes us all dance like puppets. Paladins follow stupid orders. Laws force people to report harmless neighbors. But it's not magic. What'll happen if you win, huh? What'll happen if you get in charge, with all this?"

"I don't plan to be in charge."

"You think you won't be?"

"I already said I don't plan to be."

Havok growled, suddenly standing up. Draconicon barely had a moment to duck his head before the white dragon's chair went flying over him. He sat up, and his guest had a finger pointed in his face.

"Don't...lie...to me...You got all these people under something. Some control. Something to make 'em obey. I know it. I see it. They're moving different. Like they all know how the others are gonna move. Better than training. Better than anything but magical stuff. That ain't going away when this is over, is it?"

"...Probably not."

"Why?"

"Because I don't know how to make it go away."

"Then you're in charge. No matter what. Because anything you don't like, you can change."

"...You have a sharper mind than I expected."

"Sharp...Heh...you know nothing of sharp."

But I do know that I need you more than ever, if you're figuring this out that fast. Draconicon shrugged, though, and leaned back a bit more, almost tipping his chair back as he kept up his relaxed appearance.

"Let me ask you this. In all your hunting, in all your luring, has it ever brought you closer to finding your goal?"

"...I got a goal. Killing paladins."

"That's not a goal you'll ever finish, though. There might as well be an infinite number of people, compared to what you can kill on your own. They're well trained, and getting better with every passing year. And with a crippled arm like that -"

"Not crippled."

He blinked, looking past the gap in the robes towards that bandaged arm. True, it had held the crossbow steady enough earlier, but -

Havok showed him without being asked. Claw-tipped gauntlets ripped through the bandages, and for the first time in a long time, Draconicon felt a little shiver run up and down his spine.

"Names..."

"My family...my sisters...my brothers...So I remember..."

The hint of a tear bloomed at the edge of Havok's eyes, but it was blinked away so fast that Draconicon wasn't entirely sure that he'd seen it. Using the gauntleted finger, Havok traced each one.

"Burned in...branded...so I always remember...can't forget...can't forget..."

"...How long has it been?"

"Ten years. They...died on the Burning Day."

The same time that Draconicon had lost a lover, and lost many friends. The day that the Guildhouses had burned all across the country. The day that the Empire was lost, and the Theocracy became.

No wonder Havok was a wreck. He'd been running around killing people for ten years, and that took a toll on people. He knew that better than most. He'd been the same, until he took the time to form the Order. Until...until others had reached out and stopped him from simply destroying what he found, and binding people to help him. They were more similar than he thought.

He could use that.

"We've all lost someone here, Havok. Friends, family, lovers, and sometimes all of them at once. The Church has taken many things from us, from freedom to home to everything that we love.

"There's nobody else that will understand you the way that we do. Nobody can bring them back...but here, you can start building again. You'll have a place to step back from the edge every time that you finish killing.

"And if that isn't enough...we can help you kill more."

Havok's eyes glittered at that, and Draconicon nodded.

"War is still far off. I will not declare that until we can win in less than a day, without killing the people out in the fields, in the cities, and everywhere else. But we can make life hell for the Church. I send people out every day, to harry and burn and destroy where they can, to intercept paladin patrols and leave them in ditches and in fields. I do everything I can to make sure that they can't rest easy, and I want your help."

"Uh huh. You want more killers. You want good killers."

"I do." And that was the truth. "But I want to keep your talent. You're better than most of the people I have. I can't afford to waste anyone, in this fight, and you fighting on your own is going to get you killed, eventually. You're losing your mind, slowly but surely, in that hate of yours. I've seen it happen."

"You've lived it."

"...Yes."

Indirectly, but yes. It was a mixed blessing that he no longer had to live with it.

"The Order can help you. Hunt in the darkness, but live with those that understand. I'm not asking you let go of the hate...just hunt and use it, with other people that know it."

"...I get to keep all my weapons? And my robe and armor?"

"Of course."

"I get to hunt every day?"

"Yes, with teleportation to get you in and out places, and back-up, if you need it."

"And without your mark?"

"And that...is the sticking point."

He stood up, but Havok was already backing away, keeping a good five feet of distance between them. It didn't work.

He was behind the killer with a flick of his finger, and grabbed the white dragon before he could pull away. Two hands grabbed him by the wrist, but he was already moving again. Teleporting out of grip, and grabbing the other shoulder. Back and forth, for several seconds, before Havok ducked and spun, sweeping his leg around.

A jump saved him from that, but a surprise tail sweep caught him by the cheek. He stumbled back a couple of paces, rubbing his face.

"Hmm..."

"Don't...touch me..."

"It's my rule, Havok."

"I'm not a slave like everyone else here...I'm not!"

He rubbed his cheek a couple of times before walking to the tent flap. Squeezing it tight, he slowly lowered his head, looking at the ground.

"Have you ever heard of the Fifth Holy March?"

"...Heard the name."

"It happened on the fourth anniversary of the Burning Day. Hierarch Vend -"

His claws nearly ripped through the cloth of the tent, and he took a deep breath to calm down. The name...the name still hurt.

"The Church...had infiltrated the Order, the same way that they had infiltrated the military, back then. The same way that they had infiltrated the government, the city services, everything, before they took over the Empire. They've had enough practice at this that I never saw it coming, and I lived through the Burning Day.

"As soon as they had the location of one of the Order's camps, they marched. Their...Holy March...killed over three hundred mages, and a thousand sympathizers in one stroke. Their spies rose up and killed us from within, and disabled any chance of us coming in to help them.

"If they'd had the mark then, I could have known. I could have stepped in, and helped. If I'd used it then like I do now, the Church could never have gotten in. They would have been stopped before they could tell anyone anything."

"I'm not one of them."

"No. But this ensures you can't be turned. This ensures...you won't be alone."

"...Won't be..."

Draconicon turned, looking over his shoulder. His chest felt like it was wound tight, his muscles clenched everywhere as he held himself together. The mark had shared the deaths of every single one of them with him. It hadn't been enough to save them, to stop the others. He'd been accepting, open, expecting honesty from those that came to him.

He'd been naïve. No more.

He held out his hand to Havok.

"Please. Take the mark. You will be part of us. You will have anything, everything that you need here. You'll have friends who can find you, who can help you. You'll have food, protection...even magic, if you have the aptitude."

There was a twitch at the side of the white dragon's eyes, and Draconicon mentally filed it away. What was Havok's history? What was it that had driven him this deeply into madness? What else was there to find out about him, besides the fact that he was a killer?

He'd know, soon. The mark would tell him, with their bond.

He took a step towards the white dragon, still offering his hand.

"I will give you the chance to take revenge on the church a hundred, a thousand times over what you could ever do for yourself. I will give you whatever you need, including a path back from the darkness. All I ask is that you work with me...and take the mark for your safety."

Havok looked at his hand. The silence stretched on, and on, until the dragon looked up once more.

"You didn't answer my question."

"Which one?"

"What will you do when you win?"

"..."

"Answer, or I'll leave."

"You wouldn't make it out."

"I'll make it cost you."

"You would..."

He sighed.

"I don't know. I don't know what the world will be like, if we win. I don't know what we'll have for resources, for anything else by the time that the war is over. At the very best, the Order will have the majority of itself still put together. If that's the case, I can start working on reversing the spells that I put on people, and save the mark for punishment of those Church members that survive."

"And worst?"

"Worst?"

Draconicon's eyes glazed over a bit. Honestly, he didn't know...he didn't want to know. But the other voice...it knew.

"At the worst, we fight, and I win by pulling everything through the mark to burn their great cathedrals to the ground."

"And you'll die. Right?"

"Probably."

Havok slowly nodded a few times, and Draconicon did the same. The white dragon took his hand, and they shook on it.

Now here's hoping that he doesn't find a way to get around my various protections in this spell, Draconicon thought. The last thing he needed was for the telepathy to be reversed to let the white dragon see into his head as well as letting him see into Havok's. The things that could be found in there were not meant to be brought into the light, not even by someone that lived in the dark.

"So...shall we begin?"

Havok nodded.

Gesturing toward the ground, Draconicon guided Havok into place, putting him on his back and nudging what clothing he had out of the way. He needed a clear path to the white dragon's chest, just over the middle so that he could place the mark. It was...strange, doing this to someone that planned to die in the middle of this war. Most others took the mark as something that would protect them, a sign of defiance that they would carry through to the end. To put it on someone that almost seemed to wish death...

He shook his head, letting the linking spell flow down his body. It passed through his heart, through his core and his own magic, before sliding down his body. In theory, anyone could be marked anywhere with this spell, but it worked best with something that he had a lot of sensation through. And...well, Badi had found out - long ago - how much sensation he had through his feet. And it was better than marking someone in a more perverted way, wasn't it?

Lifting his foot, he held it over Havok's chest. The white dragon looked up at him, steely-eyed and tense. Draconicon knew that Havok didn't want this, didn't want to be a part of those marked, but...well, he had given permission.

As soon as he saw the first lines of goo running from the bottom of his foot, Draconicon brought it down. It squished over the white dragon's scales, and the magic...released.

Instantly, he felt his mind soaring through their connection, pushing into the killer under his foot. Identity shifted, his mind opening wider than normal, and the great web of connections he'd already established filled his consciousness.

String to the rain dragon, most recent. Ignore, do not blend. Singular strand, soldier, no, officer. Better mark. Better placement.

Draconicon took a deep breath as he forced another string into the web that he'd created, running from his core outwards. It intercepted a few other officers - like Hanna, who he felt pause as the connection was made - but none were wrapped tight. Just touched.

His mind traveled down the connection, entering a darkness that he hadn't seen in almost ten years...hadn't experienced for nearly five.

Remember...kill...burn...die...remember....

The words went on in a cycle, burning upwards like jets of fire in the darkness of Havok's mind. Draconicon winced as he felt the heat of the rage in there, again, something that he hadn't felt for so long. The darkness had pressed far into the other dragon's mind, very far indeed, and he wasn't sure that there was a way back for someone like him. It may have gone on too long, like it had with...

He silenced himself. No need for thoughts to cross over now, no need to give information that Havok didn't need to have.

Draconicon pushed down a little harder, digging his toes into the white scale. It made the goo spread a bit further, enhancing the size of the footprint, making it a little bit bigger than it had been, but it also let him get deeper into Havok's mind, further towards the core of the rage.

And then...he saw it.

The frozen images, crystallized in the center of the flame. Dead bodies. Names burned into the skulls, seared in memory. Equilo. Rhecla. Others, too, but those in particular, burned into the mind, and into the scales of his body.

Draconicon stood in the stillness of the crystallized fire, looking at the memorial that Havok had constructed to his family in his mind. The memories...had never faded. There was no mercy on himself in here, no way of letting it fade so that the hurt would eventually lessen. He kept himself angry. He kept himself hungry to kill, because to forget...

To forget would be a betrayal.

Draconicon pulled himself back, removing himself from the memorial, and sliding back out. His mind pushed back through the footprint, but he left behind a little piece of himself, a little fragment of magic, of energy...of his soul, one might say. A little piece that he could come back to, something that would establish a more permanent link so that he could always talk, always make a connection with the newest member of his order.

With anyone else, he would have covered something else, but he knew better than to try clothing Havok in the garb of the order. Perhaps later, when the white dragon wasn't so furious. Perhaps. But not now.

He stepped back, and watched as the goo solidified into a glimmering black footprint, impossible to miss among the scales. It reflected the candlelight of the tent, and seemed as steely and hard as the white dragon's eyes.

Havok slowly stood up, and shook his head.

"I don't...feel different."

Draconicon smiled, and without speaking, sent the words.

You will.

Havok immediately pressed a hand to his head, and Draconicon chuckled. He patted the white dragon on the shoulder, and gently guided him towards the side of the tent, nudging him out of it and towards the campsite.

"Go to the quartermaster, and tell him that I said you could have everything back. Your mark makes you one of us, now. Find an empty tent and make it your own. Do what you like to it. Put in maps, or whatever else you like.

"This is your home now. Make it so."

Havok looked back at him, then shuffled away. Draconicon wasn't sure, but he thought he saw a small tear in the other dragon's eye. He could have slid in, could have gone to read it...but he didn't.

Some minds were too damaged to be in for long, and he'd already spent a great deal of time in there. Besides, he had other things to do, as the feline coming up to him was making clear. He held up his hand, stopping the nude woman in her tracks for a few seconds before turning.

"Now you may report."

"Certainly, Master. But first...I feel we have gotten a new assassin."

"I would say we have."

"When do I get to use him?"

"...Soon."

The End