Open Chronicles Gild Your Steel, Strop Your Gold

[Gal]

No, she supposed it wasn’t his skill entirely.

She’d been supposing since the man had sat down opposite and brought with him the tantalizing, appetizing aroma of spirit. Not the rum sort, mind you – rather the ephemeral, phantasmal sort.

“Could’ve said something earlier,” she said and stood, one hand out for the man to take. “Jerome keeps a stash for the regulars.”

The Nazrani swung by the counter, her nightly entertainment in tow. “Last one on the right,” she said, winking over her shoulder as she paid for the room. A few moments later she rejoined the man with a key in one hand a dusty amber bottle in the other.

“Get in, stranger.”

 

[Maz the Shadow]

Maz stood and followed the woman, his mind a torrent of thoughts that each conflicted with others. He wasn't exactly lacking in partners, no one in the underworld was after a short time as you got used to how things worked.

This wasn't just another partner though, this woman was people to the very deepest parts of him. Parts that he hid so many years ago when he fled his island home after murdering his brother. It drew on those parts of him, and didn't immediately remind him of his failings as a Nazrani.

So, despite his better judgement, and against every instinct that his time in the underworld had instilled in him, he went with her.

For the first time in a decade, he felt like he wasn't Maz the Shadow. He was back to being Mazogu Do'Zei Naka Iwi Lua, just another exile from the islands.

As the woman who so easily disarmed him, mentally, rejoined him, his nostrils flared. His mouth was dry with anticipation, and he could feel his heart rate rise, beating in his ears to drown out the background noise.

Gal

 

[Gal]

The latch settled with a soft sigh as black eyes settled on Maz. The last of the light from the tavern escaped when she closed the door, and the moon hadn’t yet risen above the tall houses of Alliria – for now they were enveloped in darkness, and could imagine, if only for a moment, that they weren’t in a merchant city half the world away.

The shadows became tall trees in the night; the creak of a bed a broken twig under the foot of a careless hunter. Just who was the prey here was hard to tell, though perhaps that was the joy of two Nazrani meeting with an ocean between them.

A red sash came undone with the sinuous sashay of full hips. A knot of blue lue silk released the tumbling auburn curls. Calloused hands moved lower as she moved closer, unlacing the white tunic that pooled at her waist like the foam of the roaring sea. Unpredictable as the waves, Gal coiled around the man, fingers ghosting a path over his broad back as she circled to face him. The flash of teeth was all the warning he got before she wrapped the length of red fabric around his neck and tugged him forward for a bruising kiss.

She parted from him with a grin, trailing a hand down his chest just to shove him back. “Undress.”

Maz the Shadow

 

[Maz the Shadow]

Maz's eyes were wide, and his breathing shallow. He'd completely disconnected from his identity as a master thief and assassin, and was now just the apprentice voyager and warrior he'd been on the islands.

As she broke the kiss, his neck darted forward, and his teeth snapped softly, trying to keep a lingering feel of the sweet, hot flesh of her lips.

At her command, his hands slipped up to his clothes and systematically drew them off in the order needed. His weapons came off within the sequence, getting placed in the folds of his clothing as it was placed on the ground at the foot of the bed.

He stopped for a moment, shirtless, his hand on a shape at the small of his back. Slowly, he drew the object out to show an ornate black leather scabbard that held a weapon within it. It was roughly as long as Maz's shin, and there was a flap over the hilt of the blade that was peace tied to the rest of the sheath. Barely visible beneath the leather flap was a hilt that seemed to be shaped coral, like many ceremonial blades of the Islands they both hailed from.

The moment passed as he dropped it on his shirt, and his hands moved to his trousers, his boots having been removed with quick hand motions and kicks. As he undid his trousers, he moved forward to Gal, and leaned down to take her lips back on his.

 

[Gal]

It was easy to mask her excitement between ragged breath and wet lips; easy to hide a stolen glance for the dropped dagger as she tugged the man onto the rough sheets, onto the creaky mattress; easy to drive the rest of his reason down south along with his blood as her hands followed.

She counted tattoos and scars, counted his successes in the hunt, in the ring of battle. He would make for a good hound come morning, when he would awake alone, penniless, shirtless, and bound to a bed.

(Not to mention pounding from spiked mead and pounded from a good shag.)

But Gal was as patient a stalker in the urban jungle as she’d been back home, and so she merely grinned as she bit her way lower, down a path that would make any man forget his own name.

 

[Maz the Shadow]

The next morning, Maz awoke with his head pounding, sunlight piercing the rooms shadows like spears through the bars of a cage. It took him a few moments to gather where he was, and a few more moments to gather that he was restrained to the bed.

Not the worst way to wake up, except he woke up alone.

It took several more minutes for Maz to slip the restraints on one wrist, and then free himself. In that time, he wasn't too worried. There had been a lot of drinking between bouts of carnal exuberance, so his fugue was to be expected.

It wasn't until he was almost fully dressed that he noticed the Blade was gone. With it, his brothers spirit was taken from him.

Anger pushed the fugue away, and it took less than a moment to complete dressing and begin to tear the room apart in search of the Blade. He knew the search would be fruitless, he knew that Gal had taken it.

He pushed his anger down, and with it any fond memories of the previous night. He pulled his hood over his head and stalked down to the bar.

It was early morning, no one was present, but he heard someone puttering about in the kitchen.

Maz slid into the kitchen, finding the keeper from the previous night. Maz let the kerambit he slid from a sheath in his belt make noise as it came free, causing the keeper to turn. The keeper didn't see the small blade, but he saw the unhappy look on Maz's face, and it made the keeper grin.

"Gal got you good, did she?" He chuckled, shaking his head. "Need ta be more careful, boy. Girls like that will drain you dry in more than the fun way."

Maz ghosted forward and said nothing. He slid the kerambit up the back of the keepers exposed shoulder joint, severing muscle and sinew, and causing a spray of blood. It was a debilitating wound, but not a lethal one. The keeper cried out, trying to turn to face Maz, but found the bloody kerambit pressed against his throat.

"You tell Gal that I will find her and retrieve what is mine." He free arm shot forward, striking his elbow against the keepers temple, making the man slump to the ground.

Maz cleaned the blade, and left by the back door. He knew that Gal was gone from the port, but he knew that he would find her. All it would take was time.