The blade slid from its sheath without the scrape of metal against metal, only the rough whisper of waxed leather and the hollow sound of drops falling from rotten roof tiles, splattering into mud mixed with filth.
The alley was too narrow for wide strides and too deep for the light of the main street to reach it. It looked like a crack split between two crooked brick buildings by the swing of an axe. Tall walls, coated in slick green moss, rose on either side until they squeezed the sky into a narrow strip of leaden gray. To the left, herring crates stacked chest-high were rotting with the pungent stench of old fish and dried brine. To the right, three pitch barrels rested against wooden wedges. In the middle of that corridor, hanging from a rusted hook that creaked when the eastern wind blew, a lone lantern swayed, casting an irregular, sickly yellow halo over the shallow rain puddles.
Farther ahead, the alley bent around a blind corner.
A dead end.
Akel slowly turned on his heels, his weight balanced on the balls of his boots. He held the longsword in one hand, its point angled toward the ground at roughly forty-five degrees. The runes carved into the blade's fuller lay dormant beneath the dull steel, while the wooden grip rested in his palm like an extension of his own bones.
Four men spread out before him, closing the half-circle with short, tense steps across the wet paving stones.
The man in the brown hood had retreated to the mouth of the alley. He stood there with his hands buried deep inside the pockets of his worn tunic, his shoulders resting against the corner of the building, blocking the only route back to the busy street.
One of the thugs—square shoulders, a square jaw, and the heavy breathing of a man carrying too much flesh for his own frame—spat a brown wad onto the stones. He held a short woodsman's axe in his right hand, its uneven blade scarred with file marks.
"The boss said you were one of them," the man growled, his voice rough against the damp air, thick with contempt that barely managed to hide his hesitation. "One of the beasts the Order made to hunt other beasts."
Akel didn't answer.
He didn't blink.
He simply shifted his rear foot two inches outward, testing the grip of the mud against the worn limestone.
The silence he returned was heavy, stripped of any theatrical challenge. It was the patient calm of a butcher waiting for the pig to make the wrong move.
The first movement came from where fear was the loudest.
The young man on the left—thin, teeth clenched, gripping a broad cleaver so tightly that his knuckles had gone white—lost patience with the silence. He let out a dry grunt and charged straight ahead, awkward and uncontrolled, his arm raised far too high in a thrust that depended entirely on desperation.
Akel didn't use the steel.
He made a tiny sidestep, letting the cleaver slice through empty air four fingers from his chest. His left hand shot underneath, locking the young man's wrist with the precision of a blacksmith's vise, then pulled him forward, using the attacker's own momentum against him.
With a smooth turn of his hips, Akel guided the man's head toward the moss-covered brickwork.
The impact sounded like a watermelon splitting against a grinding stone.
The boy slid down the wet wall, his eyes rolling upward, and collapsed onto his side in a puddle. The only sound he made was the breath leaving his lungs. The cleaver slipped from his fingers and sank into the mud.
Akel didn't bother looking down.
The thin man with the two daggers and the medium-built swordsman advanced together, trying to crush him between them before he could regain his stance.
Akel took two measured steps backward, feeling the chill of the air against his back as he nearly brushed the rotten boards of the crates.
The short-sword wielder unleashed a violent horizontal slash aimed at his neck, while the dagger fighter lunged low, trying to open his stomach.
Akel bent his knees and dropped at the last fraction of a second.
The two blades crossed through empty air above his hood with a sharp metallic hum.
In the same continuous motion, using the spring of his legs, Akel twisted his low body like a leather whip. The heavy sole of his boot swept across the dagger fighter's lead leg at the knee.
Bone gave beneath the pressure with a dry crack.
The man let out a strangled howl and collapsed forward, splashing dirty water across the stones.
The swordsman tried to recover, bringing the point of his short blade down in a blind arc.
Akel tilted his head aside.
The enemy's steel scraped against the stone wall behind him, sending a violent shower of orange sparks into the air with a hiss that cut through the alley.
Before the man could pull his weapon free, the large man with the axe charged.
"Damn you!"
He roared as he brought the short axe down with both hands, using the full weight of his torso like a battering ram.
Akel threw himself to the right, rolling his shoulder over the corner of a crate.
The axe struck with brutal force, burying several inches of solid iron into the stone wall, shattering plaster and opening a deep crack in the masonry.
The stone caught the blade.
The brute pulled hard, the muscles in his neck twisting into thick cords, but the iron refused to come free immediately.
Akel gave him no time for a second attempt.
He raised his sword with a sharp movement of his forearm and thrust.
The runed blade punched cleanly through the man's right bicep, tearing through muscle and tendon until it scraped bone, then emerging on the other side in a thick burst of red.
The brute opened his mouth in a soundless gasp.
The axe handle slipped from his numb fingers and struck the stone floor with a crash of metal and splintering wood.
Akel took three quick steps backward and resumed his guard.
His breathing remained steady, flowing through his nose in a thin mist that mingled with the fog in the alley.
He felt the warm, sticky pull of blood running down his left sleeve. The point of the short sword had caught his forearm during his close dodge against the wall, tearing through the fabric of his tunic and opening the skin beneath it.
There was no pain yet. Only a dull pulse and the cold burn of night air against the fresh wound.
The dagger fighter crawled through the mud, trying to reach his weapons with trembling fingers.
The swordsman kept his blade lowered, trembling from his knees to his shoulders, his eyes wide as he stared at the pool of blood forming beneath his companion's boots.
The axe wielder had fallen to his knees, clutching his mangled arm with his left hand, his teeth bared in a grimace of hatred and raw agony.
Farther back, beneath the swaying lantern, the man in the brown hood remained motionless.
His small eyes didn't blink.
There was neither surprise nor anger in them. Only the bureaucratic coldness of someone calculating the cost of a lost shipment.
The brute spat blood onto the ground, staring up at Akel with bloodshot eyes.
"You're not human..." he rasped through trembling teeth. "You never were."
Akel held his gaze without lowering the point of his sword.
"Maybe," he replied, his voice completely flat. "But I'm still standing."
The dagger fighter tried to rise in one last desperate spasm. He staggered forward, a dagger in each hand, the blades trembling as he launched a blind crossing attack.
Akel took a single step forward.
His blade came down in a short, precise descending cut.
The edge struck the right-hand dagger at the base of the ricasso, snapping the cheap steel in two. The broken pieces clinked into the mud.
Before they touched the ground, Akel twisted the sword in his hand and drove the solid iron pommel directly into the man's chin.
The impact was hollow and final.
The thug collapsed onto his back, arms spread wide, motionless on the stones.
The remaining swordsman looked at his companions on the ground.
Then at the crimson eyes beneath Akel's dark hood.
He turned and ran.
He dropped his weapon and sprinted toward the far end of the alley, stumbling over his own feet.
Akel reached him in two long strides.
He seized the man's tunic collar with his left hand and used the man's own momentum to throw him sideways.
The man slammed into the stack of pitch barrels.
The rotten wood gave way with a thunderous crack, and two barrels rolled over his legs, pinning him against the wall with a muffled groan.
Behind him, the brute attempted one final attack.
Crawling through the mud, he drew a long dagger from his boot with his good hand and lunged toward Akel's heel.
Without even fully looking back, Akel turned with mechanical fluidity.
His left foot planted firmly.
His right leg swept out in a quick, tight arc, striking the brute's injured arm.
The dagger flew away and buried itself in a crate.
The impact sent the man face-first into the wet stones, knocking him unconscious.
At the far end of the alley, near the exit, the brown silhouette moved.
The watcher spun on his heels and sprinted toward the faint light of the main street.
Akel didn't run.
He looked down at the dagger lying in the water half a meter from his feet, picked it up by the blade without hesitation, weighed the handle with a quick movement of his wrist, and threw it.
The steel flew low, spinning once through the damp air.
The point buried itself cleanly in the watcher's right calf.
The man released a sharp scream that ricocheted between the narrow walls and collapsed to his knees in the mud, clawing at the building's plaster with his fingers to keep his face from hitting the ground.
Akel walked toward him slowly, gravel crunching beneath his leather soles.
He stopped beside the kneeling man, planted his foot firmly against the back of his injured thigh to hold him down, and pulled the dagger free with one steady, cold motion.
The watcher gasped, sweat soaking through the rough fabric of his hood.
Akel grabbed him by the collar with his bloodstained hand and turned him against the stone wall.
"Who paid you?" Akel asked.
His voice was barely a whisper, but it cut deeper than the wind coming through the alley.
The man squeezed his eyes shut and spat into the mud beside Akel's boot. Saliva and bile mixed together.
"You think this is about fucking contracts?" His breathing came in broken, asthmatic bursts. "You don't know anything, Hunter..."
Akel's expression didn't change.
He pressed the cold edge of the dagger against the man's throat, hard enough for a dark bead of blood to appear.
"I'm listening."
"The Pardas..." The man's body began to tremble unevenly, his small eyes staring blankly at the space above Akel's head. "They don't work alone anymore. There are powerful people behind them... people at court... people who are going to..."
His voice failed.
A wet crack came from the back of his throat, followed by a dark bubbling that stained his lips almost black-red.
The man's back arched violently.
His pupils widened until they swallowed the irises.
Then his chin dropped forward, limp and heavy against the blade.
Akel held the body for two seconds.
Then he released the fabric.
The watcher collapsed onto his side, lifeless.
Silence fell over the alley like a heavy sheet.
Only the steady patter of drops into dirty water and the rusty creaking of the lantern hook remained.
Three bodies lay sprawled across the ground, one unconscious beneath the weight of the barrels, and the dead man at Akel's feet.
Akel wiped both sides of his longsword against the watcher's cloak until the steel shone clean again.
The cut on his left forearm was beginning to burn now. The numbness of adrenaline was fading, replaced by a sharp, persistent pain.
He raised his eyes toward the narrow gap between the rooftops.
The gray sky was beginning to close into a cold, starless night.
He drew a deep breath, pulling the freezing air into his chest.
Akel returned the sword to its sheath, but his left hand remained resting on the hilt.
The prickling sensation at the back of his neck came before any sound.
The weight of a pair of eyes fixed on him.
Calculating every breath.
"You could have helped," Akel said without turning his head toward the shadows.
From behind a tall stack of wooden crates came the sound of careless footsteps, barely disturbing the mud.
Clark Thorne emerged.
He wore the same dark cloak, the hood thrown back over his shoulders. His pale face contrasted with the strand of black hair falling across his forehead.
In his left hand, he held a half-eaten apple.
He raised the fruit to his mouth and took a dry bite, chewing with infuriating calm as the crunch of his teeth breaking through the skin shattered the funeral silence of the alley.
"I wanted to see if you still moved like you used to," Clark said, his words dragging slightly between bites.
Akel kept his eyes on the exit.
"And?"
Clark swallowed, wiping his lip with his sleeve.
His yellow eyes gleamed beneath the dull lantern light.
"You still move. But you're slower. You hesitated with the boy. Four years ago, you would've broken his neck before he touched the wall."
"You're fatter," Akel replied immediately, his voice flat.
Clark gave a quiet chuckle, almost inaudible, and took another bite.
"Fair. The food in the capital's taverns has more butter than the bitter roots we used to eat at the fortress."
He walked slowly through the puddles, ignoring the weak groans of the thug trapped beneath the barrels.
He stopped in front of the man Akel had knocked down with the sword's pommel, kicked the man's worn boot with the tip of his own, and tilted his head as he studied the unconscious man's features.
"I've seen this one before," Clark said, pointing with the apple core. "He's not just some street thug working for the Pardas."
Akel pulled a piece of linen from inside his coat and began wrapping his forearm, tightening the knot with his teeth to stop the bleeding.
"Where?"
"At a meeting I wasn't supposed to enter," Clark replied, the mocking rhythm suddenly disappearing from his voice. "In the inner courtyard of the Palace of Alfra, two weeks ago. He was waiting in the royal steward's antechamber while other men wearing the same crest on their rings went in and out without announcing their names."
Akel raised his eyes.
His brows drew together into a hard line.
Clark walked over to an overturned wooden crate that looked sturdy enough to hold his weight, brushed the dust away with the back of his hand, and sat down, resting his elbows on his knees.
Akel dragged another crate three paces away and sat down, keeping his view toward the alley entrance and the fallen men.
The lantern continued its pendulum swing, casting distorted shadows that stretched along the stone walls.
"The Hunters who disappeared," Clark continued, his voice dropping two tones until it nearly vanished into the damp air. "You heard about them at the Guild."
"You told me in the square," Akel replied, finishing the improvised bandage. "Two veterans."
"I told you half. They didn't disappear in the forests fighting manticores, Noar. They were taken. From locked inns. No signs of forced entry. No broken swords."
Akel waited.
He knew that rushing Clark was the quickest way to get sarcasm instead of facts.
"Who would take Hunters from the Order?" Akel finally asked. "Very few people on the continent have the stomach or the steel to corner modified men."
Clark shrugged, tossing the apple from one hand to the other.
"Who do you think would be interested in studying what the Order does to a man's body? Who spends centuries perfecting blood and flesh?"
The air between them seemed to grow two degrees colder.
The smell of moss and iron in the alley seemed to thicken.
"Vampires," Akel said.
The word came out dry and heavy.
Clark nodded.
He wasn't smiling anymore.
"Not some wandering creature that sleeps in a village crypt and drinks a peasant's blood. A small group. Ancient families, pure bloodlines that never accepted living in hiding in the eastern wilderness after the Great Purges. Nobles who learned to use rice powder and expensive perfumes to disguise the smell of corpses."
Akel looked at his gloved hands, slowly clenching his fists.
"And what do they want with Hunters?"
"What does any predator want when it realizes its prey has poison in its veins?" Clark leaned forward. "Blood. Tissue. Knowledge. The Order spent three hundred years altering human physiology with mutagens and herbs so we could withstand their bite and speed. If those families discover the exact formula behind what was done to you and me... if they manage to replicate or reverse the process... they won't just create monsters. They'll create armies that don't feel pain, don't age, and obey blood commands."
"And the Pardas?" Akel asked, nodding toward the sprawled thugs. "Where do they fit into this?"
"The Pardas are the cheap tool. The capital's government can't use the city guard to do dirty work in the streets without drawing the Council's suspicion. Nobles working with these families pay Parda leaders to open doors, watch who comes in from the roads, eliminate obstacles, and create the kind of chaos that keeps everyone looking in the wrong direction."
Clark spun the remains of the apple between his fingers and tossed it toward the sewer drain in the middle of the alley.
The fruit landed with a muffled plop in the filthy water.
"You know what else I discovered while walking those marble corridors in the palace?" Clark continued, his yellow eyes fixed on the drain. "The vampires aren't just using nobles as cattle or paying for favors. They're infiltrating positions of command. Taking the identities of weak heirs, buying debt claims, controlling the customs houses. They don't just want a dark corner to feed in. They want control of Umbria."
Akel raised his head, his eyes flashing in the dimness.
"A coup."
"Not a future coup," Clark corrected, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "A coup that's already begun. The poison is already in the cup. They're just waiting for the old men to swallow it. And the Levis Company's audience... that little piece of sealed paper Rodric is holding like it's gold... is nothing more than a tiny detail on their board."
Akel remained still.
His breathing was deep and measured.
"Why the Levis?" he asked. "A company of twenty men can't bring down a government."
"Because you're trying to become a Spear of Umbria."
Clark stared at Akel with genuine severity.
"And you know exactly what the title of a Spear grants: military autonomy within the walls. Authority to search noble warehouses, investigate violations of hunting treaties, arrest conspirators, and kill in the crown's name without going through the magistrates' bureaucracy.
"If the Levis Company receives the banner and starts moving through the upper districts under the command of a stubborn veteran like Rodric... you become a stone in their boot. An unpredictable problem."
Akel looked around, staring at the men sprawled across the gravel, the dagger embedded in the watcher's chest, and the blood still slowly running toward the gutter.
"So the ambush wasn't because of mercenary rivalry."
"Of course not," Clark replied with a nasal laugh, without a trace of warmth. "The Pardas wouldn't spend five men ambushing a lone hunter over a handful of silver coins. They wanted you out of the way because Selena registered you as part of the delegation for the audience. They know who you are. Or at least they suspect what you can do if you catch the scent of rot in the records room."
Clark placed his hands on his knees and stood from the crate with a crack in his back.
He looked toward the alley entrance, then back at Akel.
"If I were you, I wouldn't tell Rodric any of this yet."
Akel frowned.
"Why?"
"Because Rodric is an old soldier, Noar. Old soldiers think in terms of battle lines, martial honor, and signed contracts. If you tell him he's marching toward a nest of vampires conspiring within the nobility, he'll stick his head in the noose trying to prove his loyalty to the kingdom. Wait. Don't say anything until we find out who else is involved in the city's administration."
Akel didn't answer.
He let the silence settle, weighing every word as the night breeze swept across the edges of his cloak.
They left the alley together, walking side by side without hurry.
Neither looked back at the lantern still swaying blindly over the bodies.
Night had fully settled over Alfra.
The river wind swept through the broad avenues with an icy breath, dispersing smoke from low hearths and carrying the salty smell of the docks.
The central streets were almost deserted. The merchants had packed away their stalls, leaving only boards and rubbish behind, while the few pedestrians still crossing the stone pavement walked quickly, heads lowered, coats tightly fastened against the wind, their eyes avoiding any armed figure.
They walked three blocks in dense silence, broken only by the steady rhythm of their boots against the wet stones.
At the corner leading to the secondary road by the Iron Gate, where a stone cross marked the old boundary of the dyers' parish, Clark stopped.
He slipped his hands into the pockets of his cloak and looked toward the mist descending from the hills.
"I'm going this way," he said, making a vague gesture toward the temple district.
Akel nodded once.
"Will you look for me again?"
Clark curled the corner of his mouth into a cynical half-smile, his yellow eyes glinting beneath the distant reflection of a guard's torch.
"Probably. You attract trouble like a carcass attracts crows. Impossible not to find you."
Akel adjusted the clasp of his cloak over his left shoulder, his voice sharp and unhurried.
"Then bring more information. And fewer apples."
Clark's smile grew by a fraction.
"No promises, Noar."
He turned on his heels with the silent agility the Order had carved into his tendons and took two long steps into the darkness.
When he turned the narrow corner between two wooden buildings, the darkness simply swallowed him.
There was no sound of footsteps in the mud, nor the rustle of fabric against the walls.
Akel remained standing at the corner for a long minute.
He watched the emptiness Clark had left behind, feeling the constant burn in his forearm and the cold weight of the blade against his thigh.
He turned east, toward the torches of the walls flickering through the mist, and began walking toward the camp.