Train Job, Part 3

It was a train job, which truly is a rare treat! The usual subtlety and intrigue of their daily work, but at breakneck speed and the tight iron confines of a hurtling bullet chugging across the nation. Who could be dour in such fantastic circumstances!

“Now you see, the Imperium folks, now they can brew. The short ones,” I nudged my travelling companion with my elbow as I pulled a flask from my vest, “they especially have a gift.” I rattled the container at him invitingly. He shook his head, his face displaying the classic combination of confusion and fear. Ah, the poor common folk. I shrugged, and took a long pull on my imported liquor.^[1] I suppressed a burp, in deference to my chance companion. He tried once more to return to the paper he had folded neatly on his lap before I interrupted him.

The Train Job, Part 2

It is not the train that makes the job difficult, but rather the speed at which it travels across our glorious land. Faster than the quickest steed, this iron behemoth pulls the weight of industry and progress across our commonwealth day in and day out, fuelled by magic and the will of the people. Magnificent.

But, when you are attempting to apprehend a group of dangerous criminals intent on using the train system as a means to wreak havoc, well...

One can see why Ser Gilbert is upset.

The Warlock Ten, or Dex as most of his companions called him, was waiting at the rear of the train to provide arcane support if called upon. His communication cuff link had recently chirped, telling him that Ser Gilbert was engaging his target. Other than that though, the system that the team used to stay in contact was eerily silent. Their opponent's strengths were not clear at this time, and Gilbert had not wanted to risk their information being intercepted so he had ordered them to remain silent.

Warlock Ten had wanted to point out that his examination of the individuals from afar had revealed no divinitory essences or systems that could possibly perform such an interception, but this was not Warlock Ten's first Mage Hunter. He had long ago learned not to volunteer too much information, or to let his keeper become too aware of his true potential. Partly for his own safety, and partly for theirs.

Mage Hunters with particularly potent Warlocks tended to volunteer for increasingly dangerous tasks, and although he loved his country, Warlock Ten had no immediate intention of dying alone in some far-flung corner of the globe to preserve and expand that country.

He looked out the small window of the baggage car he was hiding in, and sighed contentedly. The train continued its long trek through the grasslands and farms of the commonwealth, oblivious to the altercation about to occur inside it. Absent-mindedly, he pawed at the locket hidden inside his shirt as he wondered for a moment if it was all worth it. The wheats and grasses flew past the window, mountains in the distance seeming to lumber slowly, calmly by in the distance.

Yes.

He steeled his resolve. Indeed, it was worth it. Every bit.

His cuff link chirped twice in quick succession, and Warlock Ten broke from his reverie. Time to work. He scurried up the ladder on the wall, and flung open the hatch to the roof. Sunlight blazed into the dim baggage compartment, and the sound of whipping air was nearly deafening. He steeled himself, and climbed out into the driving wind.

Four

Four went down
from town to crown
and knew not where
their stars lay.

Four sons of light
must learn to fight
if in this new home
they will stay.

Four were here
now three are near
and for the other
do we pray.

Four took root
and bore the fruit
of labours dark
and choices gray.

Train Job, Part 1

It was a train job, which he hated because it complicates things. Anytime you take an intricate, delicate task and put it in a rickety box hurtling across the countryside at fifty clicks an hour, something goes wrong. Something you wouldn't expect. Something that would have been no issue, if you'd just kept your feet planted on the dirt like any decent son of the Goddess. But alas no, this was no normal job.

It was a train job.

Ser Gilbert of Neviche sighed, and shuffled his newspaper. He moved to the next page, eyes scanning the compartment for something, anything. Any sign of trouble, any uncomfortable passengers, an errant bead of sweat on a traveller's brow.

He could see Harcourt animatedly chatting up a neighbouring passenger at the other end of the car. Technically in position, but as usual his attention had wandered from the task at hand. Typical.

Page three of the paper had a story about some trouble at one of the universities, some kind of extraplanar being put down by a group of overzealous youths. He frowned. That is a job for the Diony, after all. Lazy and incompetent as they are.

It was subtle when it happened. Almost too subtle for Ser Gilbert, he noted. Two passengers, opposite sides of the car, separated by four rows casually meet eyes and nod to each other slightly. Got you.

One rises from his seat, folding his paper under his arm and retrieving a small bag from under his seat. Calmly he starts to make his way to the door at the end of the car. Gilbert presses the gem on his cuff link to alert Nora and the Warlock to be prepared, while trying to get Harcourt's attention. The target is almost to the exit by the time Harcourt turns casually from his conversation and points at the seated cohort while winking at Gilbert.

Curse his effortless skill, thinks the Mage Hunter. He throws his paper into the seat across from him and moves to calmly pursue the primary target. The far door of the car opens and shuts behind the man. Gilbert's cuff link chirps quietly to confirm Nora and the Warlock received his alert. He ups his pace to a noticeable amount, counting on Harcourt to handle the secondary target.

The door is a standard sliding train door, with a frosted glass pane on the top. Ser Gilbert takes a moment to breathe, centres himself, and throws the door open.

To come face to face with Nora, priestess of the Great Provider and his second-in-command. The instant ready position both took eases into a comfortable stand, as the confusion sets in. They both step onto the small platform separating the two cars, and Gilbert closes the door behind them. The sound of the rushing air is loud and unsettling.

"Did he pass you?" Gilbert asks, already knowing the answer.

Nora shakes her head with a glare. The two check opposite sides of the car, looking into the disappearing distance in case their target had jumped from the train. But the man dressed in black was nowhere to be seen on the horizon. The two turn to face each other once more. Gilbert frowns. Nora looks up, to the roof of the train.

Ser Gilbert of Neviche sighs, and begins resignedly climbing the ladder to the roof of the train. It was a train job.

Which complicates things.

Stone and Water

In the Ur-times, before Light was Bright and when The Song still played through everything and everywhen, Stone was hungry.

He had rolled from his brother Mountain days ago when Sun had just started it's journey and now he found himself by the water. The water lapped gently at Stone, and he found it soothed the hunger. But it still persisted. This vexed Stone. He sat in the gentle water for a thousand days, pondering how he would sate the great hunger that he felt, how he could grow himself big and strong like Brother Mountain. He thought and thought, so deeply and so long that he did not notice the water was shrinking him day after day. By the time he realized what had happened, he was a famished pebble, drowning in the gentle waters.

This vexed Stone. But he was too small to roll now, so he sat in the water, and stewed with his siblings that had suffered a similar fate.

They're Not.

That's the thing. They're not dinosaurs. They never were, dinosaurs went extinct sixty-five million years before anyone could even start to imagine their majesty, and long for them to shake the earth once more. These things, they are pale copies, imitation meat trussed up in the ill-fitting clothes of their ancestors and set free to adapt to a world that has no place for them.

Don't worry, they're making a place for themselves wether we like it or not.

But I digress, these creatures look like dinosaurs. Probably for another ten years or so, maybe more. They glide across the land on sure feet, arms and backs bedecked in bright plumage, hunting stealthily through the trees. The big ones lumbering across the plains, leather-skinned and whip tailed. And in a few short years they'll be obsolete, as our understanding of a world an eternity passed comes more clear. But these won't change. Because they're not dinosaurs.

They're what we think dinosaurs were. Cobbled together from bits and pieces of modern day animals and a pitifully basic understanding of the process of evolution's effect on a creatures genome.

Sigh.

The knowledge of the great lie sits under my skin like sandpaper. It grates on me every day, distracts me, keeps me from enjoying the essential grandeur that is before me.

They're not dinosaurs.

But god damn, do they play the part. An allosaurus rumbles past, sniffing the air, looking for me. Or maybe dinner. Probably both. The corner of my lip rebels into a slight smile before I can convince it otherwise. The allosaur heads off into the forest, dissappearing into the foliage.

I shoulder my rifle, adjust my bag and slip out of my blind. There's work to do.

Al came up from the south, and didn't smell like he'd had much luck. Probably nothing to worry about there then. And I'm sure as shit not heading north after the big lad. So east or west?

I have the GPS. I could pull it out, fiddle with it for a while and get a precise location on damn near every critter in the sanctuary. Theoretically. Unless they changed my password again. Every three months? When was the last time I changed it?

"Fuck it." I shrug, and head off eastward. I'll run into something.

The air is thick and heavy, hot. The sun's heading down, it'll cool out in a few hours. I push my way through the underbrush, sweat streaming off me, careful where I step. East was a good idea. Hit the plains. Get out of the trees, they're trapping the heat. The gun catches on a branch, and I stop to carefully extract it. A soft hooting filters through the trees, and I freeze. My eyes scan the area slowly. Nothing. I slip slowly against the trunk of the tree, turning to face the darkening forest. Where is it?

My heart starts to pound, I have to focus. Don't let it get to you. Don't lose your edge. Find it. Find the sound.

There is silence, save for the blood rushing through my ears.

I get the rifle free from the branch, and shoulder it. My heart slows a little.

Hoot.

Son of a bitch. I roll my eyes. The lyre bird hops from branch to branch, tilting it's head at me. Its beak opens, and a perfect immitation of a Phoruschasid. A Terror Bird. Three metres of muscle and hate, topped by almost twenty pounds of thick, bony, sharply pointed beak and skull for smashing prey.

"You're a dick." I shout at the lyre bird. It hoots back angrily.

I continue on through the cooling forest. I feel a breeze wind its way through the trees. I'm getting close.

I break through the tree line at last, just as the sun is starting to set. The plain stretches out before me like an ocean of grasses dotted with islands of trees. And working its way across it is a small herd of sauropods, thick elephantine bodies ponderously plodding along, preceeded by long elegant necks and followed by even longer, whiplike tails. It's a beautiful sight.

But something tugs at my attention. Something's out of place here. And when it hits me my stomach sinks like a stone. I grip my rifle tightly, as the fear takes hold. What I see mulling through the herd much worse than the Terror bird. Worse than the Allosaur.

It's people.

I hate people.

Dearest Elisabeth 1

Dearest Elisabeth,

Lo, it has been too many nights since I have had the chance to sit and collect my thoughts for you. My days are filled with adventure and intrigue, but my nights are the intervals of true excitement, for they are when visions of you dance across my mind. Alas that between the two I haven't the time to write you as I once did.

Two days ago our taciturn priest was able to cure us of our poisoning, at last. I will always espouse that I appreciate the work of his divine patron, but I will admit to a small complaint about the efficiency of his ministrations. Two days of prayer for a simple curing of disease? Any city priest worth his salt would be appalled.

Now, I know what you are thinking. 'Perhaps this is recompense for your wicked ways, Nathaniel'. But I should remind you that I haven't picked our good friend the Priest's pocket since we met, and even then I did return what I took when I discovered his noble profession. Eventually. What more piety could one ask from a thief, hmm? The gods are forgiving, I'm told.

I must go for now, my sweet Elisabeth. The mage is beginning to stretch and breathe deeply, which tells me that shortly there will be flames and bolts cast across the sky in what the penny-worth wizard calls 'practice'. I have learned of late that it is wise to take cover while the young man stretches his arcane muscles.

Much love, and all the care,

Nathaniel