The Wight Chronicles - Summer: Pathfinder and the Wight of the Waters

by Sqoad

CH.07 - The Victims of Circumstance

Time heals all wounds, especially for children, who well outlive many of the other creatures in Heaven Over the Azure. Valkon knew this notion well, but habitually disagreed with the sentiment, particularly now that the farfarer's face was repeatedly being planted into the table, resulting in a lost tooth and a broken nose. Seemingly a means to vent the frustration of the enforcer.

It was not so much out of vengeance or contempt, neither was it the fact that the enforcer felt Valkon was deserving of punishment for the indirect involvement in the death of Dal Vega and the entire ship's crew. Their deaths had been deemed a case of multiple murders. But to digress: the enforcer was a very busy child indeed. Before the rising it was the enforcer's duty to pass out instructions to the justiciars' hierarchy; during the luminance to give a lengthy recital of the twenty-seven mantras to the masses; and after the descent to patrol the Commons District forums where trade was abound (usually hoping to find an interesting trinket or such from foreign lands). And for this exact reason heavy frustration was taken out on Valkon for intruding on highly treasured, but much to scarce, pass-time.

"I deride no amusement from your suffering, farfarer," the enforcer grunted, finally letting go of Valkon's neck. "But I would not grieve were that scorched face of yours to be irreparably battered by my own wrath - so speak, I command you, of what dealings you had with a loather that cut short the lives of those..." the enforcer paused, "nobles of the Patriarchal Circle."

Valkon tried to smile with lips struggling against the notion. "Beating me will yield no answer, enforcer," Valkon mocked. "I have starved and I have been burnt by the sun. I have endured and surpassed a wrath of nature that you cannot fathom," .

"I can break through your threshold, farfarer, and I will see you make my life, as well as your own, I pray, easier."

Valkon grinned through the pain of the stretching lips, but could not muster the strength to speak. The defiant grunt was soon met with a back-handed clap across the face from the enforcer.

"Not 'arrogance', false, not the word I seek. It is 'fear,' fear indeed!" the enforcer riddled. "You saw the insignia, the burning equine and its wings. The loather brought you here to my hand, but you will not disclose its whereabouts."

Valkon spat and licked the teeth before replying with much struggle: "I am under house arrest for breaking curfew, and I did not kill those nobles."

The enforcer sat down opposite Valkon with crossed arms. "This you did not, that is the truth of it. But the nobles are heckling me for 'justice,' this... idea, a... sentiment they coined many seasons ago that a life for a life is a fair trade."

"I had not known much of it," Valkon remarked with a shake of the head to regain senses, "but I was almost at the wrong end of their social mandates upon arrival."

"I wager the 'matrimony'," the enforcer said and sneered.

"True."

"That is a new concept; even you outdate it," the enforcer said presumptuously.

"To be sure."

The enforcer stared at Valkon for a long while without saying anything. Valkon took this as the best moment to focus on anything other than the aching nose.

"I met a child from Yiao Valley a few cycles ago," the enforcer said finally.

Valkon raised a brow.

"Said child wanted to see the Culling Grounds."

Valkon chuckled.

"I said this was a bad idea; I said you would not want to meet a culler." The enforcer awaited a passive response, but received none. "Everyone of us children are right to fear the cullers." The enforcer looked away, out of the window. "The child would not be easily dissuaded, but a culler can kill with its breath if they chose to, and they anger easily. You wonder how the loathers can share living grounds with them."

Valkon became silent again.

"I presume you have never met a culler."

Valkon did not answer.

"As I thought," the enforcer said before Valkon could reply, "perhaps I could arrange your release to be in the Culling Grounds. It is certainly more dangerous than the Troll Woods, and much less... predictable. It will be something to think about, should you decide to stay your tongue."

The enforcer stood up and walked over to Valkon again.

"All I want is to know where you sent that loather, nothing more. I can then placate the nobles, and hopefully restore the peace. Once they know the culprit, and realise it is out of my hands to settle, they will stay their tongues too, and it will all be as nothing ever happened. That loather will not feel betrayed, nor will there ever be cause for you to worry about some rumoured dispute between justiciars and loathers resulting in a war between the enclaves. I pray you ponder on this, the cullers will not be eager to see a farfarer intrude upon the grounds."

The enforcer was halfway to the door when Valkon finally spoke.

"Send me to the Culling Grounds, I say," Valkon challenged and blew blood out of the nostrils. "There I know a culler by the name of Alabaster, like the flower, who tended my family garden. I will be welcomed as a friend, and the culler will see me home where I shall offer honey and horse milk as a reward for the service."

Valkon was not lying, of course, and the enforcer could tell, which added to the anger. Turning quickly and walking back to Valkon the enforcer said:

"I do not hate you Valkon, and I never have. I pray you will reconsider your attitude after I tell you this: I know something about House Alabaster that you do not. Ponder on that."

The enforcer left the room. Now Valkon was curious beyond measure. Breaking the nose back into place, that sentence kept repeating itself in the farfarer's head: 'I know something about House Alabaster that you do not.' It did not bode well.

---

"Okay, I confess, it was us whi messed up! I swear, there was nothing we could do!" Itch pleaded.

The boss of the Highway Dogs was intent on strangling the last breath of life out of Tick as revelation had arisen that his brother-in-law had died on the job at the hands of an unknown.

"What do I have to do to convince you that I am sorry!? Look, don't kill my friend! What could we have done?!"

The boss let his paws off from Tick's throat and threw a straight punch at Itch, who flew across the room as if weightless.

"What fiend slays a dog and then dumps him in the river?!" the boss demanded, "I want revenge! I want justice! I want a life for a life!

"How are we supposed to get something like that?! That horse was a war machine!" Itch declared, in continuation with a lie they had told. They had omitted the false-griffon upon the horse's back.

"Bring me that horse, even if it kills you! Then you can think about redeeming your faulting me!" the boss said and threw Tick across the room before stomping away.

"I thought I was done for!" Tick cried as he tried to properly regain his breathing.

"You still will be if we don't come up with a solution to our new problem," Itch warned.

"Chasing down a horse? Think about all we're gonna need to accomplish that."

"For another time, let's get out of here before he kills us out of spite."

The two spotters tapped out of the boss' chamber and tried to make their way across the bridge without arising attention from their comrades, but were intercepted almost immediately by the last dog they had hoped to meet. The right hand of the boss, Brawler.

"Y'know, if I didn't know better, I'd think you two were the ones who dumped Scratch into the river," Brawler mocked as he crept up behind them.

"Of course we didn't," Tick tried to lie, "it was entirely out of our paws!"

"Strangely it did not occur to you to swim after him and fetch him out of the water. I presume you can both swim, right?"

"Well... yes," Itch replied.

"If I didn't know better, you were trying to scapegoat and get out of this one. It wouldn't be the first time you lied to cover your asses."

"What do you know about that!?" Tick challenged, but Itch slapped him over the head for bursting out.

"I make it my business to spy on the dogs around here, and when one of you are guilty of something, I will know it. And I will know it before you do," Brawler mocked.

Tick massaged his throat as a nervous response.

"Not a pleasant feeling, being strangled, is it?"

"... No," Tick replied.

"So what are you gonna do about it?"

"Catch the killer...?"

"Good boy. Off you go," Brawler dismissed.

The two spotters took a last look around the hideout, a truly magnificent sight. With the wealth accumulated over the last few years, they lived collectively as royalty with their cavern having been transformed from a torch-lit scum hive, into an underground theme park, just short of the carousels. Even the cavern ceiling was lined with lighting, making it look roughly like the starry night sky, and the large river below the bridge gave this place that added feeling of 'home,' especially since you could also catch fish in it. But Itch and Tick was taking their last look at this place, foreseeing no return here until they had caught the horse who 'killed Scratch.'

"I hear the Waterfronts of Trottingham isn't so bad..." Tick suggested.

"I'm not leaving this place," Itch said determinedly, "my mum raised me here, and she's not fit to leave, so neither will I."

"Heh, we're doomed."

"Afraid so."

"At least I am dying with a friend," Tick joked, having only moments ago almost died at the hands of his leader.

"That's not funny, Tick, I was so scared I was about to drop my tail!"

"And I was so scared I could have died," Tick said without irony and ran off.

Itch took a pause to contemplate his predicament a while longer before setting out to plan his strategy. Fleeing was not an option with a deceptive and back-stabbing dog like Brawler in the pack, but Itch was not exactly spoilt for choice. Run away, or catch a horse he had no idea where it had gone. It was only to step out into the dead of night and begin the search. It did not bode well.