Moonlight Chronicles
Chapter 3
The room was silent, save for the gentle scratch of Galgornatrix, Devourer of Worlds idly yet desperately attempting to devour Mace whole.
Mace kept his aggressor firmly at bay with a foot pressed against the spider servitors brass-encased body. This did not dissuade Galgornatrix in the slightest - nor did the lack of a mouth or any real ability whatsoever to harm its intended target. Its brass spider legs simply dug grooves into the old floorboards below as it vainly attempted to close the distance. Mace, utterly unconcerned with his entirely evitable demise, had finally managed to fall asleep.
The name had been a poke at the drastically reduced lethality of the zombie whose brains were currently powering the servitor. Lord Duffy had come up with the name, of course. He was currently seated across the room, poised next to the window. His eyes swept the moon-lit street outside with a focus which was only betrayed by the idle flick of his fingers on the windowsill. A small, round metal object spun in place, slowed, then began to circle to a rest. Duffy tapped it down with his fingertip, peeled it up, set it on edge, then flicked it again. Over and over again it would spin, until Duffy's idle fingers tapped it still.
Perhaps he'd tapped a little harder than usual on his latest cycle of fiddling on the windowsill. Perhaps it was the distant howl of a moon-addled beast somewhere deeper in town. Perhaps Galgornatrix had finally managed to jostle him awake. Whatever the cause, Mace twitched and eased his eyes open.
His hands immediately tightened around the carbine sitting in his lap. The cold steel and burnished wood felt nice in his grasp; it was a fine weapon. It was a gift from his employers back in town: another tool to extend his life out here in the moon-blasted wasteland that made up the world. His eyes took in the room in an instant, already alert for danger despite waking seconds prior.
There was no danger to be found. Ochyrosi was curled into a ball in a corner, chest rising and falling with a slow rhythm. Keravnos was sitting upright nearby, his milky eyes wide open despite being fast asleep. And Duffy was still keeping watch.
The wooden chair Mace had fallen asleep in creaked gently as he pushed Galgronatrix fully away and stood up. Duffy's head twitched in response, but the tension ebbed as soon as he saw the noise had simply been his travelling companion stirring from slumber. His fingers flicked the round metal object once more, and once more he tapped it down as it slowly spun to a stop.
"Can't sleep?" Duffy asked, his voice low and soft to avoid waking the OaLM Hunters.
"Slept well enough." Mace picked his way across the room towards where Duffy sat. He took care to avoid the floorboards which creaked the most. Galgornatrix, despite their relatively simple nature, instinctively followed Mace's footsteps. The spider servitor bumped lightly against his leg.
Mace ignored the servitor and peered through the window. They were elevated off the street, and he could see a solitary rotten limping dumbly through the mud below. Duffy's eyes followed the beast as it stumbled slowly out of view. His fingers idly flicked the round metal object again, and Mace was now close enough to see it was a simple silver ring. It gleamed in the moonlight as it spun, slowed, and then was promptly tapped still before it could come to a natural rest.
"Getting married?" Mace asked, cocking an eyebrow. Duffy grinned in response. He glanced up at Mace, who was still cradling his new carbine in the crook of his arm. The Hunter had fallen in love with the weapon the first time he laid hands on it.
"I could ask you the same thing."
"You caught me. Carbine and I will be eloping with the loot once it’s our turn to keep watch. We’re thinking of having a destination wedding."
"Mace Hawkshire, telling a joke? You must be in a good mood."
"Hard not to be. We're all here, aren't we? Unscathed? Victorious?"
Duffy fell silent at that, lost in thought. Mace studied him for a moment - Duffy had been quiet ever since they'd stormed the church.
"What's wrong, Duff?"
"Hard to believe. We walked out of that church without a scratch on us.”
Mace nodded. His face grew serious as he thought about Martyn, the only lucid lunacite monster they’d ever encountered. “I was hoping he wouldn’t be there. Martyn, I mean.”
“Doctors were right, as it turns out. Who would have guessed.” Lord Duffy paused as movement in the street caught his attention, but it was simply a lone hound sniffing along the gutter. “The great Governor Martyn, Betrayer of Darremont. Laid to rest for the third time. You were Awake for the first expedition, weren’t you?”
“Aye. But only just. They left before I’d been inoculated. The first time I met Ebony was when she came back from that expedition. It was far less…successful than ours.”
“She doesn’t like talking about it.”
“Can’t blame her. They lost a third of their party. Ebony was on deaths door herself. Hand split in two, held together with a winding mess of gauze. Small wonder she refused to come a second time.”
“You were about there yourself.”
Mace frowned at that. His leg itched – the bone was still fractured, but the undying splint holding it together muffled the pain and mimicked the functionality well enough. Galgornatix nuzzled against it in a way that could have been mistaken for affectionate, had he not known the servitor was vainly trying to eat him.
“What a way to go that would have been. My second life over in the blink of an eye.”
“I bet that’s why they gave you the gun. To keep you from getting your ass kicked twice.”
“Can’t help but notice they didn’t get you anything. Maybe they just like me better.”
“Maybe they just thought I could handle myself,” Duffy countered. “I bet I did them proud. They’ll give me a gold star on their little clipboards. ‘Congratulations on not dying, Duffy’. Though, if I did die, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. Just the end of me.”
“Where’s this coming from?”
“Ever notice how Ochyrosi and Keravnos don’t talk about Fylakas?”
The two of them glanced over their shoulders. The OaLM Hunters were still fast asleep, or at least feigning it well. Mace frowned.
“I imagine that’s a sore subject. I’m not surprised those two chatterboxes neglect to talk about it.”
“Mace, come on. We spent four days trudging through hell to kill the guy who killed Fylakas. They didn’t mention him
once. Not even to talk about strategy. I doubt they even care, he was probably just a coworker to them.”
“Is that what you think we are? You, me, and Ebony? Just coworkers?”
“Maybe? But you two are all I’ve got, and you’ve both got somebody. Maybe I don’t matter as much to you two as you do to me.”
“Duff – “
“I know, I’m not going to harp on it.” Duffy sighed, flicking the silver ring once more and sending it spinning. A moment of silence passed as Mace studied the spin of the ring. All at once, it clicked into place.
“…ah. Who is she?”
Duffy smiled. It was the first genuine smile he’d had since they left Martyn’s church.
“Trixxy.”
“Trixxy?”
“Yep. With two x’s.”
“That her real name?”
“Just as real as your name,
Jasper.”
“Touché. Let me guess…
Velvet Diamond?”
“Yep.”
“Uh…huh. Is she expecting you to propose, or is this going to be a surprise?”
“A surprise.”
“…”
“Don’t give me that look. Just you wait, she’s going to be
Lady Trixxy once we get back to town.”
“I just don’t want you getting your hopes up, Duff.”
“I’m a
Holy Hunter. I have a silver ring, recovered from the
heart of Darremont. I am a
fantastic lover. I think I’m justified in getting my hopes up.”
“She’s a Normal. She won’t get It.”
“She’ll get It. And on our honey moon, she’ll be
getting it all night long.”
“I’m just saying – “
“No, no - you don’t get to
just say.”
Duffy snapped suddenly and his voice rose dangerously loud. Orchyrosi grumbled in her sleep across the room. The two of them fell quiet as they waited for her breathing to even out, then Duffy continued.
“You may not care about your brother, or who we were before. But I
do care. And I’m tired of waiting for someone to come out of the woodwork and claim me. So I’m going to rebuild the best damn second life any Hunter could possibly want. And when I die on some cursed jaunt through the apocalypse, it’ll be with a smile on my face because I’ll
know I lived that life
exactly the way I wanted.”
Mace pursed his lips and gave Duffy a hard look. Duffy returned it with an even steadiness that rarely showed itself in his demeanor.
“I’ll tell you what, Mace. You meet your brother. Talk to him. Learn who you were before. And
then I’ll think about taking your advice about this sort of thing. Because – and no offense here – “ Duffy’s voice mellowed, going from hard to soft as he drove the point home. “ – because I’m not going to take advice about how to live my second life from someone who could very well be repeating his first.”
Author
Topic: Ventures By Moonlight | A Semi-Cooperative Dark Fantasy | Always Recruiting (Read 33034 times)