Chapter 1
#1 of Grey Knights
A splitting headache is never the best thing to wake up to, especially when you couldn't remember what lead up to the pain. Then again, this was nothing new to him sadly, the familiarity from the last two months of poverty and misery. Nights of drinking away his sorrows were spent in his favorite pub along the river Thames only to be thrown out for starting fights with the other patrons, the objects of his anger.
Who were they? Merchants, shopkeepers, traders, vendors. Everything he longed to be and even once was, until that deal. The details even of the signing were foggy in his mind. Maybe it was the drunken haze he found himself in while making the deal but three months afterwards it didn't matter. The goods he was given were cheap knockoffs, far from the premium he paid for and far from what his clients expected. Customers evaporated as quickly as the goods fell to pieces in his hands, and sales went through the floor. That's when it happened.
His supplier approached him, all smug and smiles with contract in hand. What was a large but navigable hole in the role swallowed him whole with a single section within the contract. Having unknowingly signed on as a subsidiary and not having met his new 'boss's' quota, he found all his mercantile possessions seized and confiscated under contract, set to go to the new businessman in line. Never before was his this angry at one man. As he stood humiliated in his office, the strut and swagger and arrogant clip to the swindler's voice lent magnitudes of power to his condescendence, spurring the merchant's rage and violent strikes as he brought the envelope opener down upon his face over and over.
When all was finished the swindler's body was ravaged head to toe with stabs, his eyes gouged out, cheeks perforated, heart torn apart and chest lacerated. Yet before he had a chance to hide the body the sounds of rattling chains sounded in the hallway of the offices, and with nowhere to store the bloody body of the man before him the merchant fled through the window, crashing down through the awnings of what was his shop before. Soaked in blood and sweating profusely, it was only moments before he found himself wretching miserably in the back alleyway blocks away, shaking in terror of what was to come when the corpse was found.
A week passed as he refused to leave his home and yet there was no word of his crimes. The police never approached, friends spoke as if nothing had happened. Only a mournful howl from what he could only suspect was the swindler's dog. His morbid curiosity grew by the day, as did his drinking until finally, one fateful night he decided to head back
Now that he thought about it that was wrong. Not one fateful night
Tonight.
"Nicely done mate. Left the corpse in the perfect condition, didn't you."
Eyes blinked away the hazy fog that accompanied the soreness in the back of his head. "Wh.... Wha-"
He stopped with an abrupt slap to the face. Not hard but clearly meant to snap him to attention. "Hey, eyes on me. You're not that drunk are you?" A thoughtful pause. "Then again, wouldn't blame you if you were."
A few more blinks as he let his head hang low. "Who.... What's going on?" He mumbled, raising his head.
Second to returning to his old shop, that was his second worst mistake.
He screamed as he spied the scene before him. What was the swindler's body was now horribly strewn across the floor in a bloody, rotting, fetid scene. The smell assaulted his senses almost as badly as seeing the man's exposed ribs pried open to string his half decomposed organs across the floor. Prints painted in his blood were stamped across the planks, many the distinctive four pads of a canine, others from the entrails being dragged by an unknown culprit, all leading back to the pool of blood that surrounded him. From where he stood the man's horrible visage stared at him with empty eyes and torn lips.
"You weren't his first mark. He made right fools of many men before you, so I suppose a bit of frustration is forgivable, but this? This is like something you'd read in a Norse legend about a berserker."
The heavy falls of boots on wood behind only barely drew his attention away from the corpse before him. His entire body sprang to life, his arms and legs railing against the hemp bonds that held them fast to the chair. "Let me go! I'll admit to everything! Just get me out of here!"
"Admit?" The voice had a note of amusement in it. How could anyone find this entertaining? "If you're looking to confess to the crime, you're confessing to the wrong person. There's a police station right down the road and a church a block north of here. Just don't tell them I sent you if you go to the church mate. I'd rather not have to deal with the good Father there following me around splashing me with holy water and denouncing me as a follower of Satan again."
"W-who are you!? Let me go!"
A rattling series of mechanical clicks answered his question, followed by a shunk and clack as a crossbow bolt nailed his foot to the floor. He screamed but fell silent as he felt no pain. An experimental wiggle of his toes found that the bolt instead was lodged in the toe of his shoe, missing his flesh only by the width of a hair.
"You'll go when I say so, and where that point is isn't up to you."
Breathing heavily with shaking hands, he sharply turned his head to see the box magazine of a repeating crossbow sitting next to his shoulder. With a sharp ratchet, a hand pulled the cocking slide back, the finely crafted mechanism sliding a new bolt into position and latching the drawstring. A grey furred hand adjusted the aim as the crossbow's owner walked around him.
"Now I'd rather not end up killing someone tonight, so if you just stay quiet, you'll walk out of here just fine. If you scream or start interfering with our work, I'll put a bolt in your foot, then in your knee, your hip, your gut, ectera. As many as it takes to shut you up."
The merchant's eyes tracked upwards to see the man issuing the threats. The loose hang of his duster obscured any sight of his body, the numerous pockets and pouches barely visible in the shine of the moonlight. The sly visage of a coyote stared down upon him, half lit by a pale light, but not that of the moon. Instead hairlines of silvery-gold light swirled upon the left side of his face, tracing downwards from the base of his ear, wrapping gracefully around his eye and continuing downwards like a filgree formed from tears of mercury. The smile of frightening amusement that graced his muzzle completed the sight before him, like something out of a story told to frighten children.
A deft flick of the man's hand shifted his hand from the grip to the foregrip and turned the crossbow's aim to the ceiling as he took a seat on the desk. "You get all that mate?" A nervous swallow and a nod answered him, to which he patted him on the shoulder while looking over his own. "What do you think Ardis?"
The click of claws upon the boards of the floor echoed from behind the merchant's desk. A snout was the first he saw, the nose glistening like that of a dog, but the black dust that wafted off of the tip told another story.
"Definitely a barghest. It's not gone far."
The voice was rocky and gravely, spoken with clear enunciation and without any doubt. It's nose was held to the ground, the slightest of dust stirring with it's breath. A few more steps forward revealed it's head. While it looked like a wolf, it's face was clearly not. The muzzle lacked any notion of hackles, the wickedly sharp teeth left exposed to the air. Stoney plates lined the wolf's muzzle and face, leaving little space for fur to emerge. What fur was there though seemed to constantly be evaporating into more black dust, the fine particulate disappearing into the darkness.
A few more steps brought more of itself into view. It's entire body was covered with the same stone plates, lining themselves with crystals in some areas. Along the gaps in it's body, the black dust flowed freely out, the trail disappearing into nothingness. Shards of glass that looked like it had broken off from a volcano arranged themselves in a line along what would be its spine, the line continuing down to the tip of its tail, the appendage slowly waving back and forth like a lethal bundle of quills ready to lodge itself in an unlucky bystander's leg. It's claws were no less deadly, each one a knife-like fragment of stone, each one ready to eviscerate anything it stood upon. As it turned its head upwards, the golden glow of it's eyes met his, studying him with a frightening intent. When it spoke, its mouth laid still though it's voice carried just as clearly
"When you killed this man, did you hear anything shortly afterwards?"
"W-what!? What kind of question is that?"
The coyote nudged the merchant's foot with his boot. "Answer the question mate and we'll be out of your hair sooner."
The merchant nodded enthusiastically. "Okay, okay! I ran off when I heard some chains in the hallway." The merchant stopped when the wolf and the coyote turned to look at each other.
"The same barghest we've been hunting?" The coyote offered, to which the wolf turned his gaze back to the merchant.
"When did you kill this man?"
"Ten nights ago! Why do you want to know all of this!?"
The wolf ignored his question, turning back to the coyote. "The same."
The coyote sighed and shook his head. "Great, so now we have a barghest that's cranky about someone messing with it's nosh." He chuckled again, turning to the merchant. "Well mate, at least you spared this man a fate worse than death."
"Worse than what!?" The merchant blurted back rather loudly, prompting the coyote to place his crossbow's sights back down upon his foot.
"Remember what I said about being quiet?" The immediate nod of the merchant brought the sights back up away from him before the coyote turned to his wolf companion. "I'm going to take a couple of samples for our alchemists. You keep this gentleman company while I'm busy. Answer as many questions for him as you can. We owe him that much for his helpfulness."
As soon as the coyote left, the wolf turned it's piercing, unwavering gaze turning back to the merchant. With it's unmoving face, it was hard to tell if it was studying him or simply watching, an unsettling notion. The two sat silent for a number of long and painfully quiet seconds before the merchant spoke.
"S....so you'll... answer my questions if I... if I ask them?"
The wolf nodded plainly and spoke as such. "I will, within the bounds of secrecy I must maintain."
Another long silence sat between the two before the merchant spoke again. "Who... are you two?"
"We are part of a group which fights a war the world has long forgotten."
Feeling a little more confident, he swallowed nervously, matching the wolf's gaze. "And who are you hunting?"
"A barghest."
The merchant blinked. "A barghest? A demon dog? Like out of a legend?"
"The legends are all wrong." The coyote called out as he scraped off residue from an eye socket into a vial. "Barghests are not dogs, and they're definitely not demons. They're monsters of death and chaos that like to feast on the corpses of the recently deceased. Most just choose to look like dogs."
"But I heard it before I killed him. That's what made the chain rattling sounds right? It was going to attack him and eat him when he was alive"
"And you killed him before it could." The wolf answered.
The merchant's eyes went wide as a frightening truth dawned upon him. "It's going to want revenge isn't it? It's going to kill me!"
"No. Barghests are not vengeful." Even with the merchant starting to panic, the wolf's voice kept even and calm. "It will not pursue you. You have nothing to fear. We however have work to do tracking it down and finding why it was going to kill a living person."
"How do you know so much about Barghests?"
"I am not of this world myself."
Another worrisome possibility crossed his mind. "Are you a barghest?"
"No."
"Then what are you?"
As he expected to hear an answer right away, the hesitation of the wolf had him opening his mouth to speak again when cut off by the wolf. "I don't know."
"Why are you with him then?"
Again, another moment of hesitation told much more than it's answer. "Because we prove I am greater than the sum of my intentions."
"What does that mean?"
"That's enough for now." The coyote announced crisply, cutting off any futher answers or questions the wolf had to offer. He stood up and returned several vials to his pocket. "We're leaving Ardis."
The merchant lit up at the notion. "Does that mean you'll cut me free?"
The coyote snorted in response, stepping forwards with a length of rope in hand.. "Why would I set a murderer free?"
"W-what are you doi-" The merchant was muffled as the coyote shoved the length of rope into into his mouth.
"You'll spend the night here with that dead bloke there. Consider it part of the penance for what you've done." His fingers cinched the rope tight to his head and tied it with a firm knot. "And don't bother screaming, no one will hear you. If you're lucky, someone will come find you sooner rather than later." As soon as he finished tying the knot, he reached down and yanked the crossbow bolt from his shoe, placing the bolt into his pocket. Once he gave the merchant a once over, ensuring that there was no chance of him escaping he turned his attention back to the wolf. "Anything else you need to see here."
It shook it's head. "No. I suggest you recall me though. The road outside is busier than I am comfortable sneaking through."
The coyote nodded. "Alright."
The glow around the coyote's eye suddenly retracted leaving nothing but darkness. As the last mote of light disappeared, the dust flowing from the wolf grew and grew until finally it seemed to drain whatever what beneath it's stony plating. Then, when there was nothing left the plates seemed to disappear as well, collapsing into gravel upon the floor which itself faded from the world.
Before the last little bit could vanish, the coyote stepped forwards, scooping a handful up and depositing it into his pocket. With seemingly nothing else to do, he flashed another one of his wicked grins towards the merchant. "Good night mate, and good luck."
***
Edward paused for a moment, the arcane mark spell held ready in his hand. He had no problem what happened to that man upstairs, having already found what he was looking for. Anything more was a waste of time, serving to only amuse him in the morning.
"I take it Ardis was right again?"
He turned his head and smirked at the panda behind him, his hand closing and dispersing the spell. Even in the dim moonlight her emerald eyes were instantly recognizable, the gleam clear in the moonlit street. "He was Nuo. And how about your hunch?"
She unclipped her broadsword from her belt, holding up the weapon for him to see. Wrapped in silk the edge was stained with tar-like black blood, an obvious indicator of her success. "The barghest got a little nippy and left minus a leg."
"Well down a leg is good and all, but it'll have it's leg back in a couple hours. Only thing that'll mean anything is actually killing the shite sucker."
She shrugged and chuckled. "The beast wasn't too keen on dying. I couldn't catch it, even when I tried to use a ward."
"It broke through a ward eh?" Edward mused with a raised eyebrow. "Bargests aren't smart enough to figure one out."
"Unless they have help." Nuo gave her broadsword a shake. "Take another look, this time with Ardis' eyes."
Edward leaned forwards, closing his eyes and he felt the sensation of sand and gravel flowing about them. when he opened them again, it was not his eyes that were opening, but the much more perceptive ones of Ardis. The world took on an otherworldly yet familiar aspect as he looked around. The sky had turned a ghostly silver as streams of energy flowed through the sky, the light reflected in the puddles upon the cobblestone pavement they stood upon. Phantoms strode across the road, echoes of people who had lived and died in this very place, their souls having moved on, leaving their lasting impressions upon the world behind. His borrowed gaze fell upon the broadsword, the blood upon it's silk wrapped edge no longer black, but instead a deathly red, darker than the blood of any mortal creature of this plane. As he observed it more closely, he started to see that red wasn't the only color upon it. Threads of violet and blue interlaced with with it, barely visible even to Ardis' eyes. They formed a skeletal network, binding the beast's blood and forcing it's energy to flow in the direction it willed.
"It's blood's corrupted." Edward concluded, blinking Ardis' eyes away. "Outside influence. Piss poor job but it'd work to dominate something like a barghest. You could tell as well?"
"Actually it was a guess." Nuo admitted with a smirk. "Figured you'd actually know what's going on."
He answered with a shrug. "There's too little to actually know what's got the barghest enthralled. All I can tell is it's there and it's influencing its behavior. It's actual body will give me a better idea of just what's happening to it."
"Well, what is there to do now?" She asked with a note of exasperation in her voice. "I'm getting tired of chasing this thing around London only to loose it each time."
Edward shrugged. "We've done all we can. All that's left is to send these samples to the alchemists back at headquarters and see if they can make heads or tails of a way to track this thing down." Seeing the frustration in Nuo's expression, Edward tilted his head and smirked. "The way I see it, we've got the rest of the night off."
Nuo, now looking a little more frustrated than before, tilted her head and scoffed. "Really? That's it?"
"That's it." He stated plainly, turning to leave with a final wave goodbye. "Go home Nuo, get some rest."
She sighed and shrugged. "Alright." Before Edward could even take a few steps forwards, Nuo had caught up, catching his right arm and hooking her hands around it.
Stopping in midstep as she latched on, he turned to face her with an amused look. "I don't remember inviting you along."
"Shush." She ordered curtly. "I've no patience for refusal right now."
With a light chuckle, he resumed his step, guiding the two back onto the street, the boulevard populated with pubgoers returning home after a night of drinking. "If I recall, I have to write a report on the samples I took, and you have a monthly report to write out for the Purgatory Guard."
"Paperwork has never kept you from spending the night with me and the Liang Yu Jing Wei can wait. Why should the contrary keep me from spending the night with you?"
Edward laughed and picked up his pace. "Very well then, work can wait. I've a bottle of wine that I'm sure will be an excellent diversion."
Nuo mirrored his smile, though with a note of mischief. "Among other things."
"Yes, among other things."