- TMK -

Layris leapt over the roofs of Cathlod, her boots catching on the damp tile that adorned the skyline. She moved from building to building, careful to keep hidden from prying eyes below. She crossed onto a shell of split brick and boarded windows that was once the old bank. The rusted scaffolding let out a metallic peal as she passed.

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The Crusaders she followed marched in perfect unison, the clink of their plate armor rising over congested streets. The Crusaders trailed behind hulking men in helms decorated with jagged feathers. These giants towered over the Cath, the city folk parting around the metal men like mice. And to the Crusaders, they were mice.

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But Layris wasn’t Cath and Layris wasn’t scared.

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She landed on scaffolding unused since the viscount’s abandoned reconstruction efforts. The Cath saw the scaffolds as a reminder of their lost war. Layris saw them as a perfect place to hide.

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She rested, smiling as the Crusaders filed by her. Their destination was the entrance to the sewers, just as Calder had said. Little more than a gaping hole in Cathlod’s precise street grid, the breach was easy to sneak into and easier to sneak out. That is, until the Crusaders built a small fort around it, complete with a makeshift palisade.

For the past few months, the city had been humming with the rumor the metal men had found something in the darkness. And the former ruling families would pay through the nose to find out what.

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The Crusaders called the families syndicates now. Even if it was an exaggeration, there was some truth to it. The ruling families really had not changed since the occupation began. It just happened that most of what they did was at best objectionable to the Crusade. The syndicates were like the mercenaries of York’s Rest or the guild masters of the Conglomerate. As much as the syndicates claimed to be faithful to the four gods of the compass, Layris knew they worshipped only one god, wealth.

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They were not so different from Layris in that regard. No matter how much the preceptors tried to pound their dogma into her psyche, Layris found that money was the only god who answered her prayers. The deal the syndicates offered was one Layris couldn’t pass up. No matter if Calder was the man the Crusaders depended on to retrieve whatever was in the darkness.

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She slipped through the scaffold and landed in an alley. Quickly, Layris weaved through the crowd of bickering Cath, the sound of metal on metal growing louder as she came close to the palisade. Soon the makeshift camp was in sight. The wall was taller up close and there were more Crusaders than her view from the scaffold had revealed. But she didn’t need to climb the palisade.

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Not if she was smart about it.

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Taking a bit of twine, Layris pulled her black hair in a tight ponytail and tapped a disheveled man on the shoulder. “Excuse me.”

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“What you want, girl?” he answered with a garbled mess of chopped consonants and drawling vowels.

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“Can you help me?”

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“Fuck off, auslander,” he replied with the traditional Cath insult, giving her his back.

He would do.

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She took a few steps back, then bolted for the Cath. The man she pushed tumbled into the column of Crusaders. The Crusaders fell easily in those metal coffins they called armor, helmets echoing as steel struck the cobblestones. After marching for hours in the damp heat of Cathlod, it didn’t take much to set the Crusaders off.

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As the Crusaders were still disoriented from their fall, the first punches they threw fell short of the man Layris shoved. Other townsfolk came to his aid, most just waiting for an excuse to get even with the metal men from which they had cowered for so long. In a matter of minutes, the column was a bar fight flurry of fists and spat blood. All the while, Layris walked by, slipping behind the vacant palisade gate.

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Scampering about the encampment, Layris was pleasantly surprised. The tents and the usual morning mist provided more than adequate cover from the Crusaders. Enough that she could pause behind a bivouac while another patrol hurried to the gate. It wouldn’t be long before they ended the scuffle and returned to their posts. The Cath would get away with maybe a few broken bones and bloody noses, but none would be shot. The Crusaders were occupiers and every dead Cath meant that much more headache for whomever was in charge.

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She peeked from behind the bivouac, scanning for anything that could house something useful to the syndicates. A bulky pavilion that could only be the marschal’s quarters caught her eye. A white flag swayed at its top. In its center was the black falcon of God splayed against the white backdrop. The Crusade’s reminder to the Cath who really controlled their city. 

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She scurried across the cobblestones, quick to find cover behind the pavilion. With the tent vacant and the Crusaders distracted, Layris crawled inside. The desk in the center held a stack of papers, spent cigars, and an ungodly number of pens. The footlockers by the bed offered nothing either. Each was filled with little more than unwashed whiskey glasses and tobacco. She froze, several shadows glossing over the pavilion. The unmistakable curses of bloodied Crusaders followed the shadows, but they quickly moved out of earshot.

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She’d have to hurry.

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In that moment, Layris noticed a string along the side of a footlocker. A small flap dropped from the locker’s frame as she tugged on the thread. Inside was a flattened roll of paper, one that made her grin as she unfurled the parchment.

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It was a map. Of what, she wasn’t quite sure. It appeared to be a twelve-spoke wheel superimposed over Cathlod. Between the thick lines forming the spokes, was a mess of thinner, crisscrossing charcoal streaks that created an impossibly complex maze. However, the map was incomplete, with huge portions left blank or erased. It explained why the Crusaders needed so many men to begin with. More importantly, it explained why they needed Calder.

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She stuffed the map in her boot and shut the flap, careful to leave the footlocker the way she found it. 

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Then she felt the touch of metal at the base of her neck. The click of a revolver’s hammer sounded soon after.

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“Get up,” the man said in an icy monotone.

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Layris did as told and placed her hands at the back of her head.

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“Turn around.”

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She faced him, grey eyes looking back at her. He was tall, almost unfathomably tall, with buzzed salt-and-pepper hair and a hard, craggy face. His armor was made of thick, polished steel. A marschal’s cloak featuring the black falcon covered his torso. There were two aides by his side, each with a long gun aimed at her heart. He looked around his tent, examining the desk and cupboards Layris had rifled through.

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“Bring the cartographer here,” he told an aide flatly.

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“Yes, Marschal,” the aide replied as he dashed out of the tent.

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“I am impressed.” The man holstered his revolver. “Not a paper out of place and not a wrinkle on the carpet. You are cleverer than the last Cath thieves who thought to steal from me.” He placed his steel-coated hand under her chin and eyed her more closely. “And not even a woman yet.”

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He moved to the desk, uncapping his whiskey bottle and filling a glass halfway.

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“But you’re not Cath. No, not with that black hair and those beautiful green eyes.” He sipped his whiskey slowly. “Were I a betting man, I’d wager you are a pureblooded Saironian cur. Not the only one I have had the pleasure of meeting either.”

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The flap to the pavilion opened, the aide and two other men stepping inside. Both were dressed in canvas-and-clockwork suits that whirred with every step they took. One had black hair cropped short and wore brass goggles over his face. The other had skin like mahogany with greasy dreadlocks matted to his back. The dreadlocked man looked at the other and smiled widely, revealing yellow teeth.

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“Calder,” the marschal spoke to the man in the goggles, “When were you going to introduce us to your lovely daughter?”

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Calder removed his goggles, revealing a pair of rage-filled green eyes.

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“Today, apparently,” the man with the dreadlocks answered for him.

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“Shut up, Varcael,” Calder snapped at the dreadlocked man and seized Layris with an iron grip. “What are you doing here?”

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Layris said nothing and held her defiant look. Calder responded with a backhand that left a red mark on her cheek. 

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The marschal placed his hand on Calder’s arm. “No need for that unpleasantness Calder. I am sure she was just…overzealous in her curiosity.”

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Layris was surprised.

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Mainly because Calder listened to him. Calder was not the type to be intimidated. Usually his fits consisted of three or four backhands before finishing with another empty threat. But Ulrich held Calder’s purse strings and Calder worshiped coin just as much as Layris did.

Calder glared at his partner. “Finish the market quarter.”

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“You’re the boss,” Varcael said as he left the tent, laughing under his breath.

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“I’ll be back shortly, Ulrich,” Calder addressed the marschal, who nodded in response. Calder hauled Layris out of the tent, crushing her forearm in his grip. “Let’s go.”

Continued in the completed -A Fable For Larks- Manuscript!