Three days was all it took for the Shadow Kraken crew to cross the sprawling countryside from Havenport to Limka. They moved with the relentless speed of a hunting pack. Maurzer, Tylus, and Westleh rode atop massive, heavily muscled Fenhoofs, the beasts' powerful legs eating up the miles of dirt road. Above the riders, Chayne, the giant, glided effortlessly through the sky, using his mastery air element he rode the high currents to scout the path ahead.
Damurah propelled himself across the ground using his fire element. He fired precise bursts of flame from his palms to launch himself forward in massive strides. His continuous bounds kept perfect pace with the Fenhoofs.
They burrowed into the dense tree line and finally, the towering walls of Limka came into view. The crew slowed their pace, converging as they approached the exact same heavy wooden gates that Doren, Meko, Katarina, and Anya had passed through days prior.
As the dust settled around their boots after dismounting, Damurah sliding to a stop, and Chayne slamming into the earth, they looked around at the strangely empty gates. It was mid-afternoon, a time when a major trade hub like Limka should have been deafening with the roar of haggling merchants, clattering carts, and bustling crowds.
Instead, the air was suffocatingly quiet. There was no clatter of wagons against the ground, or chattering amongst traveling merchants. The massive gates were open, but the usual flow of traffic was nonexistent. Only a handful of city guards stood at the entrance, gripping their weapons with tension, their eyes darting nervously at the heavily armed crew approaching them.
Captain Maurzer adjusted the collar of his coat, his sharp eyes taking in the empty road. With a casual, predatory swagger, he took the lead, walking straight up to the most senior looking guard stationed at the archway. Damurah and the rest of the crew hung back just a few paces.
"Awfully quiet for a trade hub in the middle of the day," Maurzer noted, his voice a gravelly drawl that demanded answers without having to yell. He stopped just inches from the guard's halberd. "Did someone forget to tell us there was a city wide holiday, or did the gold dry up?"
The guard swallowed hard, his eyes briefly flicking to the smoldering heat still radiating off Damurah's shoulders before looking back at Maurzer.
"No holiday," the guard muttered, his voice tight. "The central marketplace is a graveyard right now. Shut down on the Magistrate's orders while we clear the rubble and the blood."
Maurzer raised an eyebrow. "Rubble?" He asked, trying to milk the guard for all the information he could before going into a blind, traumatic epicenter.
"A few days ago," the guard explained, shifting his weight uncomfortably under the pirate captain's stare. "The market district had a massive brawl that completely tore through the main square. A group of wandering kids, two boys, two girls, got into it with one of the freaks from the underground arena. They tore up half the cobblestones and destroyed the main market square."
The guard paused, shaking his head grimly as he recalled the chaotic aftermath. "But the damage didn't stop when the freak went down. The guards moved in to arrest the kids, but one of the kids, the earth one, caught a heavy crossbow bolt to the chest. Bled out right there in the street."
Behind Maurzer, the temperature instantly spiked. Damurah's head snapped up, his eyes locking onto the guard. He knew Doren was traveling with an earth elementalist. His blood ran cold, then instantly boiled into fury.
Maurzer held his ground, his expression shifting as he processed the information. He leaned in close to the guard. There was a dangerously sharp edge creeping into his voice, "Is that so? And what happened to the rest of those kids after that one went down?"
"Not sure. Before the guards got there to assess the situation they were gone. They saw three shrouded figures vanish," the guard stated, his knuckles shifting around the haft of his halberd. He was trying his best to maintain a strict facade of authority, but his eyes darted nervously between Maurzer's scarred face and the heavily armed men behind him. The guard knew, with a sinking feeling in his gut, that his small detachment was completely outmatched by this crew.
"So, no one knows," Maurzer said, his voice flat and unreadable, though his mind was already racing through the implications.
"Only thing I know is that we have wanted posters up," the guard added defensively, taking a cautious half-step back as he gestured vaguely toward the city. "Are you passing through or doing business?" He changed the subject to get things moving. Another traveling group was just behind the crew of the Shadow Kraken.
Behind Maurzer, the air began to warp and shimmer with intense heat. Damurah was rapidly losing his battle for patience. The brutal realization that the kid was dead, a kid who had been fighting alongside his little brother or could possibly be his brother, and that Doren was now a wanted fugitive or being examined on a doctor's table, was pushing his volatile element right to the surface.
A low hiss of steam escaped Damurah's clenched jaw. His eyes burned like fresh coals, and the dirt and stray pebbles beneath his heavy boots actually began to crackle and pop from the spike in temperature around him.
Tylus shot Damurah a warning look, resting a hand casually on the pommel of his hammer, ready to physically intervene if the fire elementalist decided to turn the gate guards into ash right then and there. Chayne also shot him a look, gripping his fist and whirling the air around it.
Maurzer could feel the blistering heat pressing against his back, knowing exactly how close the oldest Mercer brother was to detonating. He held the guard's gaze and offered a thin, humorless smile.
"Business," Maurzer answered smoothly. He casually flicked a silver coin into the air. It caught the afternoon sun before clinking sharply against the guard's chest plate, an unspoken bribe to keep the gate open and the questions to a minimum. "And we're going to need a long look at one of those posters."
The guard caught the silver coin, his fist snapping shut around it. He took a wide, cautious step back, clearing the path. "You'll see 'em," the guard muttered, refusing to meet Damurah's burning gaze. "They're plastered everywhere."
Maurzer didn't offer a word of thanks. He just strolled past the guards, leading the Shadow Kraken crew through the heavy gates and into the unnervingly quiet streets of Limka.
The moment they crossed the threshold, Maurzer let out a long, easy breath. He casually raised his hands behind his head, interlocking his fingers behind his neck as if he were taking a leisurely stroll rather than walking into the aftermath of a bloodbath.
He needed to get to the market district to see the ground zero of Doren's fight, but he had a strict, personal policy about navigating foreign cities. He never asked men for directions. In his vast experience, men were generally too proud to admit they didn't know the way, or they were already completely lost as it was.
He waited patiently, letting a few hurried laborers pass them by, until a young woman clutching a woven shawl hurried down the cobblestone street.
As soon as his eyes found her, Maurzer's relaxed posture shifted. He dropped his hands and stepped gracefully into her path, his scarred face breaking into a bright smile.
"Excuse me, darlin'," Maurzer purred, his gravelly voice dropping to a smooth, disarming charm. "A weary crew and I just rolled into town. Could you be so kind as to point us in the direction of the market district? We'd love to resupply before continuing our journey."
The woman paused, her initial fear melting slightly under his charismatic gaze. She blinked, a faint blush dusting her cheeks, and pointed vaguely toward the center of the city, murmuring something about the blocked-off streets. Maurzer leaned in closer, offering a sympathetic tone, expertly keeping the conversation going with a few charming, compliments
Behind him, the air began to warp. Damurah was vibrating with raw, unchecked anxiety. The knowledge that could be dead or who knows where, was pushing the fire elementalist right to the edge. A wave of suffocating heat rolled off the oldest Mercer brother, making the air shimmer and baking the stones beneath his heavy boots.
"Are you just going to flirt all day?" Damurah snarled, his voice a low, crackling hiss that cut straight through Maurzer's smooth composure.
The young woman's eyes went wide. The suffocating wave of heat rolling off Damurah, combined with the raw venom in his voice, shattered the charming spell Maurzer had on her. She clutched her shawl tight to her chest, stammered a terrified apology, and sprinted away down the cobblestone street.
Maurzer stood perfectly still for a moment, watching his source of information flee. Then he slowly turned to face Damurah, the charming smile was completely dead. The charismatic rogue vanished, replaced instantly by the hardened, ruthless pirate captain of the Shadow Kraken.
He didn't yell. He didn't have to. Maurzer stepped right into Damurah's personal space, completely ignoring the unnatural heat radiating off his shoulders. He looked up, his eyes locking onto Damurah's burning gaze with absolute authority.
"Remember," Maurzer growled, his voice dropping into a cold, dangerous register that carried no warmth but no hostility at the same time. "We are helping you a hell of a lot more than we are helping ourselves. I understand that the fate of the world is at stake here, Mercer. But my crew and I could be diving into piles of gold right now. We have a map to a Duke's fortune just waiting for us."
Maurzer raised a gloved hand and shoved a heavy finger hard against Damurah's chest, right over his heart. "Instead," Maurzer spat, the words clipping with sharp finality, "we are standing in the middle of some miserable, landlocked city. Helping you. So I suggest you calm. Down. Now."
The street fell dead silent. Behind them, Tylus subtly shifted, his hand resting a fraction of an inch closer to his war hammer. Even Chayne dropped his playful smirk, the air currents around him stilling completely as the crew waited to see if the oldest Mercer brother was going to explode or fall in line. Westleh stared down at the ground, hoping there was no skirmish about to break out.
Damurah's jaw clenched, his teeth grinding. A bead of sweat instantly vaporized as it rolled down his neck. He held the captain's hard stare for one long second before finally letting out a sharp, hissing breath through his teeth. The heat distortion in the air slowly began to recede.
Maurzer didn't wait for an apology. He held the glare for a beat longer to ensure the message was received, then spun sharply on his heel. His heavy coat flared out behind him as he began marching down the street, heading straight for the center of the city.
The three boys, Chayne, Tylus, and Westleh, didn't say a single word. They simply fell into step behind their captain, moving pass Damurah. Chayne shot him a look and shook his head. They began moving down the street with the synchronized, practiced discipline of a veteran crew.
Damurah stood frozen in the alleyway for a second longer. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and forced the inferno in his veins to recede. The shimmering heat distortion faded from the air. Composing himself, he finally stepped out of the shadows and hurried to catch up with the others.
Halfway down the first curving street, Maurzer had already come to an abrupt halt. The pirate captain stood motionless, his hands resting on his head as he gawked at a long stretch of brick wall.
Plastered across the stone in a sloppy, rushed manner were four freshly inked wanted posters. They were hand drawn charcoal portraits, made from the descriptions of locals who witnessed everything. The likenesses of the portraits were undeniable. There was Katarina, her sharp features captured perfectly. Next to her was Anya, looking younger and far more terrified than she usually did. Beside them was Meko. And finally, Doren.
Doren's poster showed him expressing a face that Damurah had never seen before. He didn't know or recognize the other three.
Damurah stepped up beside Maurzer, his eyes scanning the parchment. None of the posters bore a name, the Limkan guards clearly had no idea who had actually fought in the marketplace. Instead, beneath each face was a bold, black symbol denoting their elemental affiliation.
Beneath Katarina and Anya's portraits, the elemental crests were left completely blank, marking them as un-affiliated. The guards and witnesses just never saw them using any element during the skirmish. Beneath Meko's face was the heavy, jagged crest of an earth elementalist.
Damurah's stomach twisted as he looked and studied Meko's portrait. There it was. A massive, brutal "X" slashed across Meko's portrait in thick, dark red ink, confirming his fate.
Damurah's eyes drifted to his little brother's face. Doren's portrait stared back at him. The symbol inked directly beneath Doren's portrait made Damurah's brow furrow in genuine confusion.
It was the crest of a fire elementalist.
Damurah let out an incredulous scoff, the heavy tension of the moment suddenly interrupted by a flare of petty, older brother annoyance.
"He's never used fire a day in his life," Damurah muttered, crossing his arms over his chest as he glared at the poster. The irritation that his little brother was suddenly copying his signature element made him angry all over again. "Why does it say he was fire?"
Maurzer leaned closer to the wall, his eyes tracing the jagged charcoal lines the artist had used to draw Doren's portrait. He reached out, tapping a gloved finger thoughtfully against the parchment.
"When a kid has an ancient weapon inside his chest, Mercer," Maurzer said, his voice dropping to a quiet murmur, "I'm guessing the standard rules of what he can and can't do go away. If he was throwing fire in that square... he's evolving and learning."
Maurzer led the way away from the initial posters, steering the crew down one of Limka's wider main roads. The merchant stalls lining the street were open and fully stocked, but the usual bustling crowds had been reduced to a trickle of wary locals.
As they walked past the colorful awnings, Tylus didn't even break his heavy stride as he casually reached out and snagged a bright, yellow piece of fruit right off a merchant's cart. He took a massive bite, the juice running into his thick beard. The merchant opened his mouth to protest, but one look at the towering behemoth shut him up instantly.
A moment later, the bigger person of the crew, Chayne stepped out from behind Tylus. The air elementalist let out a long, weary sigh, rolling his eyes before tossing a copper coin onto the merchant's cart to cover the crew mate's theft, smoothing over the tension with a polite nod.
They continued down the road until the road bottlenecked near a large stone wall. A frustrated crowd of locals had gathered tightly around a fresh batch of wanted posters, their voices rising in an angry, overlapping chant of complaints.
"That one sold me a fake amethyst!" an older, slightly stooped man yelled, violently stabbing a stubby finger at the charcoal drawing of Doren's face. "And gave me directions to a vein that wasn't even there!"
"I bought Turkshumu meat from that one!" a burly butcher wearing a blood-stained apron chimed in, glaring at Anya's portrait. "It was so good! I just can't believe they leveled the market square."
The older man, Grell, the local stone merchant,shook his head in disgust, crossing his arms over his chest. "I want my money back when the guard finally captures that silver tongued jerk." The words barely left Grell's mouth before the crowd was violently shoved apart.
Damurah didn't ask for permission to pass. He shouldered his way through the grumbling merchants, the temperature of the street immediately spiking as his temper flared. He stepped right up behind Grell, his towering frame completely swallowing the small, older man in a dark, imposing shadow. Without a word, Damurah clamped his heavy, hot hand down onto Grell's shoulder.
Grell froze instantly. The angry bravado drained from his face as he slowly turned his head, looking up into Damurah's burning, furious eyes.
"That 'silver tongued jerk'," Damurah growled, "is my baby brother."
Grell's knees almost gave out. He threw his hands up in sheer terror, his eyes darting frantically toward the heavily armed Shadow Kraken crew standing just a few feet away. "Ohhh, Divines, don't kill me! Please!"
Damurah leaned in closer, his grip tightening just enough to make the stone merchant wince. "Where did he go?!"
"I-I don't know!" Grell panicked, his voice pitching into a desperate squeak. He shrank under Damurah's blazing stare, his words tumbling out in a frantic stammer. "I swear it! I don't know where they ran after the market blew up! But before all that... before the fight, I gave him a name! He bought information off of me!"
Damurah's eyes narrowed. "What name? And where is he going?"
"A man named Fennix!" Grell blurted out, his teeth chattering. "Your brother was looking for information… a location! I told him the only man who might know what he's looking for is an old contact of mine! He lives off the coast… o-on Shifton Island! That's all I know, I swear!"
Damurah held the terrified merchant's gaze for one suffocating second before finally releasing his grip and stepping back. Behind him, Maurzer let out a low, impressed whistle, a grin spreading across his face. They finally had a destination.
That was all that they needed. They no longer needed to be in this nervous city anymore. Maurzer led them back to the gate, taking on his relaxed form once more, with his fingers interlocked behind his head.
When they got back to the gate and before they unhitched the heavily muscled beasts from the tethering posts near the main gate, Westleh broke away from the group for just a moment.
He trotted over to a heavy, iron courier box bolted to the stone wall near the guardhouse, a heavy lock keeping it shut. A secure drop point for the kingdom's couriers. From his leather pouch, he grabbed a rolled parchment. He quickly scribbled where the crew needed to be with a piece of charcoal he kept in his inner coat pocket. He rolled the parchment back up and slapped it into the slot.
Maurzer had been calculating their immediate route and he had been calculating his naval logistics. The letter was addressed as of high importance to the Shadow Kraken crew docked in Havenport. The crew were to drop their moorings immediately, catch the fastest winds available, and navigate the ship down the coast to rendezvous at the southernmost island of Erenia.
If they were going to intercept Doren on Shifton Island, Maurzer intended to have his ship and the full weight of his crew waiting for them when they hit the southern waters.
Tylus was already on the saddle, his massive Fenhoof grunting slightly. Maurzer swung smoothly onto his own beast, taking the thick leather reins in his gloved hands. Westleh hopped onto his, bringing his crossbow off his shoulder and across his lap. Above them, the air began to swirl and hum as Chayne caught a powerful updraft, lifting himself effortlessly into the midday sky. Seeing a giant, seven foot man floating in the air made the guard's jaws drop as they were trying to check in merchants and travelers.
Right beside the captain, Damurah rolled his shoulders. The air instantly warped and shimmered around the oldest Mercer brother as his boots began to crackle with contained, explosive heat, ready to launch himself across the countryside.
With a sharp whistle and a heavy kick of his boots, Maurzer urged his Fenhoof forward.
The Shadow Kraken's vanguard blasted across the dirt road that skirted around the city. It was a storm of pounding hooves, rushing wind, and blazing fire. They left the quiet, paranoid city in the dust, tearing down the southern dirt road with terrifying speed. The hunt for Doren was officially back on.