I push off from the shelter of a collapsed jetty and sprint across the marsh toward the causeway, mud sucking at my boots.
I misjudge the footing. Halfway across a stretch of softened clay my boot slips in a shallow pool; my momentum pitches me forward, and I fumble, dropping my satchel. The grimoire and a clatter of small items spill free into the mud. I manage to catch myself unevenly on one hand and a knee, but the stumble costs me time, a wet sickening smack as my palm hits stinging mud.
I snatch a handful of mud, push off with my legs, and lurch upright. The cold water sloshes in my boot; reeds slap my calves. I bite a curse and run, lungs burning, heading back to where the satchel skidded with a wet gasp and left a shallow trail.
The mud grabs at my boots again as I close; I stagger, slide, and dive forward, managing to clamp my hands around the satchel before it rolls further into the drainage channel. The satchel is soaked and smears of mud streak the grimoire's cover and the oiled silk wrapping the crystalline shard. A corner of the Hemalcodex flaps with boggy water, but it held together.
I push off without pausing, mud squelching beneath my boots as I force myself forward. The reeds whip at my cloak and the tide reaches in cold fingers toward the causeway. The party I chased is ahead — I can see the dark smear of two cloaks moving faster along the inlet rim and a low shape that looks like a beached skiff where the causeway meets the water. One of the cloaked figures glances back; the other keeps a hand near his inner fold. Their pace is hurried but not panicked.
The marsh air carries your voice in a thin, wet echo as you call out to the cloaked figures. They freeze, mid-stride. One of them turns, hood falling back enough to show a scarred jaw and a narrow, canyoned face; the other tightens his grip on something inside his cloak and slides toward the skiff. The heavier-booted figure—likely the leader—says in that clipped dialect, not quite Common, "Step away, Weaver. This isn't for you." The tone is low, measured, but edged with threat.
You keep moving forward along the causeway, boots sinking slightly in the mire, the satchel slung tight. Your voice is steady as you close the distance; the leader narrows his eyes at your approach. The other man shifts, fingers worrying at the inside of his cloak where something is concealed.
I continue to close the distance along the causeway, the reedy water hissing around my ankles. I keep my hand near the hilt of my dagger, but my tone is conversational as I press them. I ask them what items they carry and what they sought at the ruins, my voice carrying over the steady marsh wind.
The cloaked leader's eyes narrow. He glances toward the acolyte, who moves to the beached skiff, and then back to me. His hand remains inside his cloak.
"We carry only what's ours by right," he says, his accent thick and the words clipped. "As for the ruins...that's no concern of yours. Turn back, Weaver, or you'll find more than whispers in the stones."
I speak the quiet syllables and let a thin warmth pool beneath my skin. A flicker of crimson filigree wraps about me, granting a protective ward that absorbs damage. The cloaked leader is watching me with a faint, contemptuous curl to his lip. He flicks a gloved hand and the acolyte at the skiff steps forward, drawing a short, rusted blade. The leader's own hand comes free of his cloak — not reaching for a weapon but unfolding a small iron token stamped with the crescent-and-line sigil; he rolls it between finger and thumb as if weighing me.
He answers, in a tone threaded with thin amusement, "Bold, Weaver. Step aside or take a taste of the marsh." He moves as if to close the distance.
I stand on the narrow causeway, satchel damp against my side, and call out as I press forward.
I ask the cloaked leader in a low, unhurried tone, "Have you much experience fighting Weavers?" — my voice is calm, the question edged to learn whether they're professional hunters or simple thugs.
The leader's scarred jaw tightens. He looks at me like one inspects a curious wound. "Seen a few," he says in that clipped dialect that warps Common — the words measured, unshowy. "Not many turn out like you — some spill blood too eager, some hide and whisper. We take contracts for coin; makes no matter. We guard what our employers pay for." His eyes flick to the Hemalcodex at my side, then back to me. "You'd be wise to leave it where it is."
I thrust my will outward and snap a bead of living blood from my fingertips — Blood Spark flares like a bright, viscous mote. With a practiced flick I hurl it at the acolyte, the bead streaking through marsh mist and humming faintly with vitae.
The bead slams into the acolyte's shoulder, bursting against cloth and skin. He gasps as the sting blooms cold and hungry across his flesh; the wound blackens at the edges where the blood-magic bites, and he staggers, dropping his hand away from whatever he'd been reaching for. The acolyte's body convulses faintly as the life-drain flickers, and he spits a curse in his clipped dialect.
The cloaked acolyte is wounded and shaken; the leader, standing a few paces away on the causeway with his hand still on that sigil-token, eyes me with a harder expression. The leader moves now — he steps off the piled stone and closes the distance with a long, measured stride, glancing once to the acolyte.
He lunges forward and attempts a melee strike with a short, rusted blade. The blade sparks against the crimson filigree and the leader grunts in frustration. The ward holds.
I gather a tighter bead of living blood between my fingers and flick it with cold precision. The Blood Spark streaks like a needle of ink and slams into the acolyte's chest. This time the missile blooms dark and deep; the acolyte's eyes go wide, he chokes, staggers backward, and collapses half over the skiff. His breath leaves him in a wet rattle.
I begin the incantation for Blood Boil — a Blood Sorcery spell I know — and the marsh air tightens as the weave threads in my veins.
The cloaked leader collapses, clutching his chest as if his blood were flaying him from the inside. His face drains to ash; he slumps against a piled stone and goes still.
I step close to the slumped form of the cloaked acolyte, marsh reeds brushing my boots and the Hemalcodex thumping faintly in my pack. His face is pale, lips stained with the dark necrotic bloom from my earlier strike; his breath is shallow and irregular. I plant my free hand on the wet planks near his shoulder to steady myself, feeling the slick give of algae and rust.
I press the fingertips of my other hand against the acolyte's throat where the pulse still falters. I do not hesitate; I call the weave inside me and let it answer, a focused tug at a thin red thread I sense beneath the skin.
A dark bead slides from my fingertip and, instead of being cast outward, it merges with the acolyte's pulse under my palm. I feel his life-heat wobble, the rhythm slacken, then a small current of blood runs inward along the thread I plucked — a stolen heartbeat siphoned like water from a shallow well. The pull is clinical, not cruel: I take only what I need and what the weave will spare for now.
I draw back, and the harvested life knits into my skin with a warm kiss. The stolen essence refreshes me. The acolyte lies limp, his chest barely rising. The leader at the piled stone is still unmoving; both men twitch occasionally in ragged, dying breaths. The marsh is thin with the smell of iron and wet cloth, and my hands tingle faintly from the tug of the weave. The Hemalcodex in my pack seems heavier, as if it remembers the woman from the memory I extracted.
I kneel amid the reeds and slick planks, the marsh breathing around me. The two cloaked figures lie where they fell — one half over a skiff, the other slumped against a low cairn of stones. My Sanguine Shield hums faintly against me, my hands still carry a faint iron taste from the siphon. I pull my dagger free and set to searching both bodies methodically.
I move with purpose and slow hands.
The acolyte lies prone across the skiff's gunwale, pale and unmoving. His oilcloth cloak is damp and clings to his thin frame; a crescent-and-line sigil is sewn near the clasp. A damp scrap of cloth and the iron coins spill from a pouch at his hip.
I peel back the oilcloth with one hand and feel the give of a thin leather jerkin underneath, soaked in mud and flecked with dried blood. Inside a shallow inner pocket I find:
- A small leather coin pouch containing three iron coins stamped with the crescent-and-line sigil.
- A scrap of paper, water-smudged but legible enough in places: "—bell…dusk…seal…no loose—" (repetitious of the notes I found earlier).
- A small folded cloth-wrapped item that rattles faintly (when unwrapped I find a single iron nail stained dark and sharpened at one end).
- A crude wax-sealed token with a smear of black wax and the same crescent-line symbol pressed into it.
- A short rusted blade (the one he used earlier); a length of cord tied in fishing knots; a smudged bone pipe ; a small oiled lamp empty of usable oil.
Nothing that appears to be a personal name, but sewn into the hem of his jerkin is a tiny scrap of foreign cloth with a unique weave pattern — a narrow braid of silver thread that echoes the tear-shaped motif I saw in the locket; it might indicate a faction or region.
His fingernails have a faint reddish stain (blood-ink), and there is a pocket hidden behind the jerkin's lining that contains a small, damp strip of vellum with a partial map: it shows the bell tower, a hashed reedbed, and the words "south drain" in a cramped hand.
I walk over to the leader.
He lies curled against a pile of stones, cloak half-open. His hands are scarred and bear calluses; beneath the oilcloth his vest is heavier and lined with a flimsy layer of padding. I notice a small leather roll of papers tucked into his belt and a heavier iron token looped on a thong around his neck.
I unfasten his cloak with care. In the interior I find:
- A folded set of damp papers sealed with wax. The top sheet bears a list of rendezvous points and a tally of payments; one line reads: "Bell — dusk — watch the markers. Seal the ledger."
- A sturdy leather satchel (smaller than mine) containing a short coil of greasy string, a handful of iron washers, and a scrap of charcoal with inked notations — an annotated sketch of a crypt entrance with two markers circled.
- An iron token identical in stamp to the acolyte's, but this token is threaded with a tiny loop of sinew and has a notch filed into its edge.
- A folded, damp scrap of cloth pinned inside the vest that contains a smudged name: the initial "M." scratched into the fiber with a blunt tool.
A heavier rusted dagger with a hooked pommel; a short length of chain; a small sanctified pewter charm (cracked but with faint traces of old consecration) hidden beneath his collar.
A worn, grease-fingered talisman tied with a strip of leather — the talisman carries the same crescent-and-line motif but also a secondary sigil I don't immediately recognize.
I lift my hand, the marsh air cold against my skin, and shape two tight beads of blood with practiced, merciless motions. I gather the red filament of power between my fingers, centering the weave within me until the beads hang like dark jewels.
For the acolyte, still half-slumped over the skiff, the spark kisses his temple first — a warm point of light that blooms inward along the hush of his veins. His chest twitches once, a thin, surprised breath, and then his body slackens completely. The light smears away, leaving the skin pale and the small dark stain where the blood-magic seized what life remained.
For the leader, curled against the piled stones, the bead lands along the throat and spreads like a shadow behind the windpipe. He shudders as the warmth in his face fades; his jaw loosens, the hands unclench, and the last shallow movement of his chest halts. The marsh around me takes them without ceremony.
No cries follow — only the soft settling of weeds and the distant lap of water. The two bodies lie still, emptied of resistance. The Hemalcodex in my pack seems to thrum ever so faintly, as if content.