Chapter 2 - Liberation Day

Quillan Lock

The dhole Quillan walked through the crowded streets of Damren with a firm step, the collar of his overcoat pulled up and his paws deep in his pockets. Fireworks soared above him, their bursts bathing the jubilant city in vivid colours. Looking up, he could barely see earth's rings behind the bright lights and smoke.

Everywhere people were holding flags and banners, lively drum music permeated the air, and all the buildings Quillan walked past had their doors and windows wide open, allowing him glimpses of the revelry inside. Do they even know what's happening in the countryside? These scumbags probably don't even care, Quillan thought. He had observed the purges that the Emsver Liberation Army were wreaking on villages that had not supported the independence movement. Worse yet, it had the hallmarks of speciesist violence - perhaps even genocide; people of a wolfish persuasion seemed to be the target of these crimes, and distrust by the new state extended to all members of the canidae biological family. Quillan's pedigree definitely would not be an asset to his intentions for tonight.

He was now walking on the boulevard next to the city's wide river, giving an unparalleled vista of the fireworks display, juxtaposed against the backdrop of a damaged skyline. The great Temple of Damren, across the river, had become something of a wonder: even though its soaring steeple had been broken at several parts, it had not collapsed. Instead it bended heavily outwards, making it look like a sickle. Other buildings around it had suffered extensively as well - some having been reduced to rubble. The damage on his side of the river was light, but noticeable: buildings on the boulevard were marred by bullet holes from various calibres - each dent an oddly personal reminder of the decisive battle that had taken place two years ago. It made Quillan's amber fur stand on edge.

He arrived at his destination: The Pavilion, a ten-story high grand cafe and hotel, with a scaffolded exterior. It had a terrace at third floor level, looping all the way around the building. Most of the windows were boarded up. He entered the cafe, moving quickly past two armed guards. They paid him no mind, as they were busy talking to each other whilst many others filed in and out the cafe. It was spacious indoors, and he could look all the way up to the skylit ceiling of the building because the floors did not take up the centre of the building. On the left was a podium on which a big band was playing an upbeat tune. Quillan found an empty space at the bar, and signalled a bartender, who came momentarily to take his order.

"A King's Revenge," - as anticipated, this drink was foreign to the barwoman, who raised an eyebrow - "quarter cognac, quarter amaretto, on the rocks," explained Quillan.

The bartender gathered two bottles and started mixing the drink. "You're not from around here, are you?" she said, scooping ice in a rock glass. She slid the King's Revenge to Quillan, who casually picked it up.

"On the contrary," Quillan lied, "Emsver has been my home for all my life."

"No, I mean from Damren. Judging from your accent you're from up north, yes?"

Quillan stirred his drink. Like many other places in the world, Emsver spoke the Tradesman Common, an international language that had developed over the centuries. The trick was to mimic regional dialects, and thankfully he had a knack for that.

"Yes." he said curtly, contemplating his glass.

Another customer was beckoning the bartender, who hesitated. "I've heard the stories..." she said. "It's awful what they are doing to your kind." She gestured the drink - "This one is on the house... hang in there, okay? Things will be better." And with that, she walked off to tend to the other patrons.

Don't count on it... especially not after tonight, Quillan thought, and took a swig.

A voice came from behind him: "Michi, i-is that you?". It was directed at him. Quillan half turned his face towards the voice. Looking down on him was a young okapi, one of the three okapi's present in the cafe. Quillan had been paying attention to them when he'd entered. So, this one is my contact... he thought.

He said the countersign with a grin: "Bravi, fancy seeing you here!"

"Let's go somewhere quiet," Bravi said.

Quillan drunk down the rest of his liquor, placed the glass on the counter and turned to his contact. He could see that Bravi, if that was his real name, was nervous. His instinct was to prod him a bit: "Good luck with that. I can barely even hear you from where you stand." The fireworks, street noises and the hubbub inside did make for a cacophony, but conversation was hardly impaired.

"Um... I know a place. C-come with me." Bravi stammered, clearly not liking Quillan going off script.

Quillan got off his seat and told Bravi to lead the way. They walked side by side to an opening that was half-covered by a curtain. Behind it was an L-shaped stairway, and they went up it. Up the stairs was a mezzanine with more seats and tables, almost all used, as well as spotlights aimed at the podium. Bravi steered Quillan to another set of stairs directly next to the one they came off from. They ascended those, and a final stairway on the second floor. Arriving on the third floor, Bravi gestured at the terrace, but Quillan put a paw in front of him before he could go outside.

Quillan leaned close to Bravi's ear, and said quietly: "Let's see if we are not followed. Come."

"Is someone on to us?" Bravi look at him wide-eyed.

Quillan shushed him and sat down at a table from where he was able to see the stairs. Bravi timidly took the seat opposite of him. "Could you move a bit to the left?" asked Quillan, and Bravi did so. "No, the other left."

When Bravi was finally in the correct spot, Quillan asked him if there were any other stairs nearby.

"Er... behind you, behind the curtain."

"You keep an eye out on that one. We'll wait here a little bit and see who comes up".

Quillan was almost positive he was not being shadowed; apart from his appearance, he'd not given any reason for suspicion - he was far from the only canid in the city, besides. But it never hurt to be absolutely sure. More importantly, he wanted to test his contact - see how he'd react. Bravi kept his composure, even if he stared a little too intensely in the direction he'd told him.

"I expected someone older," Bravi said.

"Same," replied Quillan.

An elegantly dressed mare emerged from the stairwell Quillan was watching. "Nine o'clock," he said to Bravi.

Bravi looked to his left and saw the mare walk past. "Not her, right?" he asked in a low voice.

"No, but not wrong either, eh?"

Bravi looked at Quillan with an annoyed look. "You're making me question your professionalism."

"Ah, so you have a bit of bite after all? Look, I don't expect anyone having even the faintest idea about us. You really should be less on edge."

"How? It is a momentous undertaking we-" Quillan cut him off before his voice grew too loud.

"We'll talk in your quiet place, not here. Go on, I'll follow you".

They walked outside. People were standing by the railings, pointing at the fireworks and calling down to folk on the boulevard. "This way," Bravi said, and they walked to the backside of the building via the terrace. There was no-one at the back - it looked out on brick walls, and most of that was obscured by scaffolding. Bravi vaulted over the railing and landed on the scaffold. "Up here," he said, and started to climb a wooden ladder. Quillan followed him up - the ladder came out at the top of the scaffold - and saw Bravi standing on a plank that bridged the gap between the platform and the rear facade of the cafe. He was removing some loose boards that were covering a window and placing them on the plank below the window. The window had no glass in, allowing him to climb through, with Quillan close behind. "We have to put the boards back," Bravi said. "You can pull them into the nails in the wall". They covered their tracks, and when they were done, Quillan rubbed his paws together. "Alrig- Ow!" He sucked at one of his paw-pads and extracted a splinter. "Where to?"

They were in a gloomy room - one of the hotel rooms. The only light was a dim shimmer coming in through the cracks of the boarded-up windows. A few bright flashes passed through the cracks as well, drawing sharp shadows on the floor and walls.

"We need to go up a couple more floors. This way to the stairs." Bravi said, as he walked out of the room's empty door frame and into a hallway. The hallway was very dark, but still distinguishable. Quillan decided they could walk and talk now. "Bold move to have your hideout in here."

"Your people asked me to find a place from where I could observe the Citadel. Only the cafe is in use - the hotel has been closed down since the siege."

"So when are they reopening?"

"Well, the owners have fled, so not anytime soon."

They went up a stairwell. "It appears you've your nerve back," Quillan said. "Have you ever met an agent before?"

"No... I was so hesitant to address you. What if I had the wrong person?"

"Really now? How many dholes order obscure drinks in bombed out cafes? The procedure was fine - a bit of awkwardness was the only thing you'd have to fear."

"Are you not at all nervous then? No disrespect, but you don't look older than me. You can't have been working for O.I.G. for long."

"I don't work for them, I work with them."

Bravi slowed down his step a bit. "So... you're like a... contractor?"

"Something like that." Quillan responded tight-lipped, not interested in dwelling on his background.

They walked in silence for a bit, getting off the stairs at the top floor and crossing another hallway until they reached an ornate double door. Bravi produced a key and unlocked the door. Inside was a wide-open space, "the Pavilion's suite," said Bravi. "Only serious money could book this room."

Quillan scanned his surrounding. The furniture was gone and one side was almost completely covered with boards - some openings had been made at eye level. He guessed there used to be observation windows there. The room only contained a sleeping bag, a suitcase and a few small effects stuffed away in a corner. "Room prices must have dropped a bit."

A dark red stain was noticeable on the floor in front of the boards. Bravi said: "This place was a perfect sniper nest two years ago; this side is facing the river." He peeked through one of the gaps, and Quillan followed suit. The view was indeed impeccable, but strong gusts of wind strained his eyes. Bravi then walked to the left of the room, and turned a corner.

"This side faces north," he said when Quillan caught up with him. He tapped a telescope that was positioned in front of one of the gaps at an angle. "Have a look through here."

Quillan looked through the eyepiece and was met by the magnified image of the Citadel of Damren's lit up driveway and gate.

"I've been keeping track of their comings and goings," Bravi said. "The leadership should be all be in there right now."

Quillan drew himself up and walked to the gap to examine the big picture. The Citadel stood on a hill, towering over the surrounding buildings, its entrance slightly below their current elevation. A few beams of light shot up into the smoggy sky from somewhere within the walls, illuminating parts of the structure. The architecture of the fortress was a peculiar mix of medieval and industrial; the curtain wall was made out of huge stone slabs, while the towers were fitted with metal girders. In the middle stood what Quillan assumed was the keep, but it looked more like a miniature version of the Presidential Palace in Aria. It even had the same blackened windows.

"They are all together... at last." Quillan suddenly felt agitated.

By the clear signs of heavy impacts on the Citadel - one of the towers was broken in half and a piece of wall had completely crumbled - he gathered the original windows probably had not survived.

"Shame they replaced those windows so fast, we could have probably seen the inside of a few rooms otherwise."

"Not just the windows, they are pouring a lot of effort in to repairing the whole thing, while the rest of the city is still a mess - especially across the river." Bravi's left ear twitched. "You should have seen the state of the Citadel when I first set up shop here. The keep was practically burned down, and now it is looking even better than before the battle."

"At least they are patrons of the arts." Quillan said, as he turned back to the monumental fortress.

Bravi snorted, "If that were true, they would have started with the Temple."

"Are you helping us because you don't agree with the new regime's restoration priorities?" Quillan asked quizzically.

"They are just fixing the Citadel so the new regime has a strong base to terrorize the people from" Bravi shot back.

Quillan faced Bravi again. "Tell me, are you for independence?"

Bravi seemed unsure on how to react, but eventually said that he was. He added: "But not like this. I was at university when the war started. A lot of my friends joined the insurgency, and they've all either gone missing or died. I told them not to go," - his eyes started to become moist - "and they called me a coward. M-maybe I was, b-but I got d-drafted when the siege began..." He paused when his voice broke, and he put two hoofed hands to his face. He took a deep, halting, breath and lowered his hands, revealing two steely red eyes. "I've lost eight good friends - eight chiefs sit in the Citadel. Tit for tat," he said with a voice devoid of emotion.

Quillan felt for him, yet also found it interesting that he'd laid the blame of his friends deaths squarely at the feet of Emsver's leadership. He had no time, nor could he gain anything from discussing the nuances of the war with Bravi, who, in addition, suddenly seemed capable of murder himself.

"I'll get the bastards," Quillan said, "with your help. Walk me through all the new intel you got here. We need to revise the plan to get me inside." He looked at his watch. "It's less than an hour before midnight, it is imperative that we are ready before then."

Bravi picked up his briefcase and a portable light, and told him to come to an adjacent room, where the wind wouldn't bother them. From there they strategized: Bravi gave Quillan his estimation on the amount of guards in the complex and their equipment, showing him notes from his briefcase. Some of the papers had some rather well-crafted doodles on the edges: faces of different species - his late friends perhaps - and flowers and butterflies. He then showed him a battered blueprint of the Citadel.

Quillan was impressed. "How did you get this?"

"Took it from my old Uni's Faculty of Architecture. Unless they changed the layout of the keep, it should match perfectly."

The blueprint was annotated so that it showed some interesting opportunities for Quillan. The collapsed wall was indicated by an oval. Bravi said that there was a guardpost erected in the missing section, equipped with a spotlight. Another oval marked the presence of a tunnel which had been dug all the way through the hill, giving convenient access to the interior of the fort from the foot of the hill. Quillan asked if this was common knowledge, and Bravi said that it wasn't, but it unfortunately wasn't a secret either. The tunnel would be well guarded. There wasn't much information on what was happening on grounds behind the wall, as their observation post was not high enough.

Quillan pointed at the side of the Citadel that was not visible from the Pavilion. The blueprint's light-grey contour lines showed the elevation of the terrain; it was a steep cliffside where Quillan placed a claw.

"Do you think I can scale this?"

Bravi looked thoughtful, and after a moment said: "If you have climbing gear, it could work. It's about 40 meters until you get to the top of the wall."

"Any patrols on the walls?"

"No guards on top of the walls. And I can't remember a night as dark as this one - it's cloudy, murky from the fireworks, and also, that side doesn't receive much light from the rings. You'll be hard to see. So, do you have climbing gear?"

Quillan reached into his pockets and extracted a handful of pointy thimbles. He pushed a few of them on his claws. "I came prepared."

Bravi looked at him as if he'd gone insane. "You're going to use that? And nothing else?"

"I've dabbled in free climbing. And I also agree with O.I.G.'s assessment that traveling light arouses the least suspicion." The truth lay fairy different, something that Bravi possibly suspected, Quillan discerned from his doubtful look. While the first part was true - he was indeed familiar with rock climbing - the second part wasn't: the agency he was associated with had a more nuanced view on covers for field operatives. Quillan was woefully without resources because the Office of Intelligence Gathering did not want to support him beyond the bare necessities. He'd embarked on a mission that was so contentious within the organisation that Quillan believed that the people who put him up to it kept their colleagues in the dark. The mission was conceived on a grim pretext: Vengeance.

"When you get to them, the leadership... how... how are you going to do it?" Bravi asked.

From underneath his coat, Quillan drew the only materiel support he'd received: a compact pistol with an integrated suppressor. The magazine extended well beyond the grip and arched inward, giving the grip the appearance of a sabre handle.

"It has an automatic fire setting, 32 rounds."

Bravi looked anxiously at the weapon. "Okay..."

"Look, all this may seem improvisational" - he made an expansive gesture with his pistol, causing Bravi to go almost prone - "but I've been sent to ensure the chiefs will all be dead come morning. Trust me."

Quillan wondered how much faith O.I.G. actually had in him. He has been essentially let loose, with low chance of success. If it turned out to be a disaster, there would be no-one responsible but himself.

This would be his first foray in the world of assassination. He wasn't at all religious and his targets deserved no pity, yet he distinctly felt that this was a turning point in his life; that there would be repercussions on his soul if he went through with it. He had taken a life only once before, and that was in self-defence. It happened fast, but he remembered being surprised by his own shock at what had transpired. Will I have the same feeling tonight if I'm successful? Quillan asked himself.

He set all his misgivings aside when he looked back at the blueprint, thinking: I'll do it, for king and country... and for me.