Interlude 4: The Oriole
by
“Hells, Grave-eye, what the fuck kind of job was this? I know it paid well, but the drake was level one-hundred-and-seven? Are you trying to get me killed? Sending me to watch some team of scions like that?” Ingle raved, pacing back and forth through his office.
Tuning out the rest of the woman’s nonsensical ranting, Grave-eye was of half a mind to have Gorm kill her, just for the sheer impudence of daring to take that tone with him.
Alas, the woman was too strong—and too useful. It was hard to find competent delvers of her calibre that were willing to get their hands dirty. Though even Ingle only did so infrequently, selectively, and for a good price. He could respect that.
Grave-eye sighed, leaning on his desk as he rubbed his brow. Regardless of her wanton disregard of his station, Ingle was reliable. She never spilled a word about anything—not even when he tried to pay her to find out who else procured her services—and her testimony had been proven to be bound in adamant at every turn. That alone kept her alive.
It just burned like gutrot that she knew it, someone as careful as Ingle wouldn’t dare to test his ire if she thought there was a hint of a risk to it.
Which made the impossibilities that spewed from her mouth all the more difficult to believe. A drake? At over level one-hundred? Two missions ago the pair of fools had fought a simple spider, barely around level eighty from what he’d been able to dig up. That was an impossibility, pure and simple. Every report—including Ingle’s own—had suggested that both fights were at the edges of their capabilities. That rate of growth? In three missions? When they hadn’t left the city in between?
It was simply impossible.
Let alone the fact that the team was fucking Bronze!
To a superior mind such as himself, it was simplicity itself to deduce that there was a greater scheme afoot. The guild was up to something.
He was certain that this was under their sanction—their guidance. Impossibly strong bronzes kill a drake, and then a day later the guild manager herself is selling off drake remains under the proviso that the contract records stay sealed? While claiming that it was an unexpected threat that the Wardog had handled himself? No way; no fucking way.
“Thank you for your services, Ingle. You can leave now.” Grave-eye said, tossing the delver a coin pouch with the three platinum he owed her.
Ingle stopped mid sentence, glaring at him as the pouch hit her in the chest and fell to the floor.
Still, in testament to her crude intelligence, she didn’t say another word. Swooping up her pay, the delver left—stomping hard enough to rattle his liquor cabinet.
That caused a vein in his forehead to throb in disgust and outrage—but with the magnanimity that was required of his station, he let it go.
There were far more important things to worry about.
Leaning back in his chair, Grave-eye let out a sigh as he kicked his polished boots up onto his desk.
“Drink?”
Grave-eye clutched his chest, nearly falling out of his chair in fright.
He shot his hound a look that could have scoured flesh from bone. He’d forgotten that Gorm was standing in the corner. The man had a frightening ability to fade into the background for a grotesque giant. Honestly, it was a miracle his mother had even survived birthing the half-breed mongrel.
“How many times do I have to tell you not to do that, you imbecile!” he hissed. “And what kind of question is that? Of course I do.”
“Of course, Grave-eye.”
Tuning out the presence of his manservant, Grave-eye returned his mind to more important matters.
Like the fact that it was so bleeding obvious that the guild was nurturing a pair of wayward scions. They only did that when the person in question had no ties to a prominent dynasty. Exiled rejects, independent prodigies, and those in hiding.
Grave-eye grinned. That meant they were a prime target. Oh yes—this was quite the valuable find.
And he knew just what to do with it.
His teeth bared to the world, Grave-eye could already feel the heights that he would be able to rise to with this sort of winning hand.
Glass clinked as Gorm placed his drink on his desk. He snatched it up before it could leave condensation on the rich leather cover—he hadn’t spent so much on a refrigeration cupboard just for his hound to ruin his furnishings.
“Gorm.”
“Yes, Grave-eye?” his hound responded, as placid and slow as always.
“Send a message to Old Yon—tell him we should meet. That I have something worth his personal attention.” Grave-eye replied.
Gorm frowned. He must have been struggling to remember how to make contact, it would only make sense for someone so diminished. Oh how Grave-eye wished that he could have someone capable for a servant.
Too bad he always ended up killing those—they always fell to the temptation of plotting against him. At least his hound was too stupid to ever do such a thing.
“Are you sure you should do that? Old Yon’s a hard man—his favour might not be as pleasant as you think.” Gorm replied.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Grave-eye narrowed his eyes at his hound. That was the problem with fools, they could never see the big picture.
He was at the height of Deadacre’s underworld—of course he should be treated with the respect of his station. A low-born fool like Gorm could never understand the ways of men of action and influence.
Gorm sighed.
“Yes, Grave-eye.”
…
Grave-eye felt the chill touch of the grave brush against his neck—the crypt air of the catacombs beneath the church that he had been directed to were damp and foreboding.
Not for the first time, he wished that Gorm was with him.
It wasn’t fear! No, it was just unbecoming for a man such as himself to be without his servant. He was of half a mind to give Old Yon a piece of his mind when he arrived at their meeting point.
Walls of bone moaned as a gust of frigid wind rattled through the sockets of the many skulls that watched him.
Grave-eye pulled his cloak around him and hurried onwards. The sooner he could return to his glass of brandy and book that was waiting for him by the hearth, the better.
….
Glancing at the lidless eyes that watched him from every angle, he could only wish that his contact had thought to meet somewhere with a little more taste. It was all just a touch too macabre in his mind.




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