The courier barge was a lean, fast thing, built to cut through river current. They had paid a mountain of gold for the whole boat, telling the nervous captain they were a noble's spoiled brats running from a marriage. The lie bought them a cabin and silence.
For three days, the Silverwash slid by. Green banks turned to rocky cliffs. The air grew salt-tanged. Seastone, and the sea beyond it, was close.
Liam stood at the stern, his one hand on the rail. The rain was a cold, grey curtain. He didn't mind it. The water hid things. It also revealed them.
He saw the other barge first as a darker smudge in the downpour. Then the shape hardened. It was bigger, heavier, a river patrol craft. His heart went cold before his eyes found the flag. It snapped in the wind, wet and heavy: a black tower on a field of blood red.
House of Crimson.
His breath caught in his throat. He turned and moved with the quick, silent speed the wind gave him. He slid into the small cabin.
Damian was sharpening a sword. Mara was counting gold coins, her face tight.
"Patrol barge," Liam said, his voice flat as stone. "The House of Crimson. They are about half a mile back. They are gaining on us."
The silence in the cabin was sudden and total. The only sound was the drum of rain on the roof.
Damian didn't look up. He turned the blade, checking the edge. "Are they signaling?"
"Not yet."
"Then they're watching. Deciding if we're worth the trouble." He stood up, sheathing the sword. His face was calm. Empty. "Our story won't hold. A rich captain might be bribed. A Crimson patrol has soul-scourges. They'll feel the power on us. They'll feel our aura. Every creature has its own unique aura and a soul-scourge can sense that aura."
"Options?" Mara asked, her hand closing around her staff. Fear was in her eyes, but beneath it was a hard, ready anger as their situation.
"We can't outrun that barge in open water," Liam said.
"Then we don't run," Damian said. He looked at them, his eyes like chips of black ice. "We let them come. We board them."
Mara stared. "Board a Crimson patrol? Are you insane? It'll be packed with cultists! Adepts! There could be a 3rd Order handler!"
"Exactly," Damian said, a cold, ugly smile touching his lips. "They have a fast boat. They have resources. They have information. We need all of those. We take theirs."
Damian's answer wasn't to hide. It was to steal the teeth of the wolf hunting them.
"Get ready," he said. "We do this fast, quiet, and ugly. No survivors. No one to report."
There was no debate. They were past that. Liam nodded, a grim acceptance. Mara swallowed her fear, and her fire sparked to life in her palm, a tiny, fierce sun. "Let's burn them."
Damian walked out onto the deck. The rain soaked him instantly. He looked back at the patrol barge. It was closer now. He saw figures moving on its deck. A light flashed—a signal lantern. Heave to for inspection.
He turned to their own terrified captain, a weaselly man hiding under a canopy. "Slow down. Let them pull alongside."
"B-but sir, the Crimson, they'll—"
"Do it," Damian said. His voice wasn't loud. It was a command that carried the weight of the earth. The captain flinched and scurried to the pilot.
Their barge slowed. The heavier patrol craft surged alongside. Grappling hooks, tipped with dark iron, flew across the gap, biting into their rail with a sound like cracking bones.
Four figures jumped across. Not low-level thugs. Two were hulking brutes in reinforced leather, their auras thick and coppery—2nd Order, maybe Rank 7 or 8. Brute-force fighters. The third was a woman with greasy hair and needles on her fingers—a Poison Needle adept. The fourth, the leader, was a thin man with watery eyes and a smile that didn't touch them. Damian's Gaze flared.
[Cultist: Soul-Sniffer. Cultivation: 3rd Order, Rank 1. Affinity: Mind/Pain.]
A low-level scourge. Perfect.
"By the authority of the Crimson House, this vessel is—" the Soul-Sniffer began.
Damian moved.
He didn't go for the leader. He went for the biggest brute, the one on the left. He stepped inside the man's swing, his earth-hardened body slamming into him like a landslide. He heard ribs snap. As the man grunted, Damian's hand shot up, fingers stiff, and drove into the brute's throat. A wet crunch. The man dropped, clawing at his ruined neck.
The second brute roared, swinging a spiked mace. Damian ducked under it. He didn't retreat. He pushed forward, his knee driving up into the man's groin. As the brute doubled over, gasping, Damian grabbed his head and twisted. The neck broke with a sound like a dry branch.
Two down. Four seconds.
The Poison Needle woman shrieked, her hands flashing. Dozens of glowing green needles shot through the rain. Damian didn't try to dodge them all. He turned, letting them pepper his back and shoulder. The poison burned, a cold fire. His enhanced body fought it, slowing the spread. It didn't matter. He wouldn't need long.
The Soul-Sniffer's eyes went wide. "You! It's—" He raised his hands, a psychic scream building in the air.
He never finished.
Liam was a ghost. He came from the side, where the rain and shadows were thickest. No wind, no sound. His one arm moved, his sword a silver streak in the grey light. It took the Soul-Sniffer's head from his shoulders in a clean sweep. The headless body stood for a second, then toppled into the river.
The psychic scream died unborn.
The Poison Needle woman was alone. She backed up, her face a mask of terror. Mara stepped out from behind the cabin door.
"You shouldn't use poison," Mara said, her voice calm. "Fire cleanses better."
She pointed a single finger. A thin, white-hot lance of fire, sharper than any needle, shot out. It pierced the woman's forehead between the eyes. There was a sizzle, a small hole, and she dropped like a sack.
Silence, except for the rain and the rush of the river.
It was over in ten heartbeats. Four Crimson adepts, one of them 3rd Order, dead on the deck of a courier barge.
Damian looked at the bodies. He walked to the first brute, knelt, and pulled a fat purse of silver and a small healing vial from his belt. He did the same for the others. The Soul-Sniffer had a storage ring. Damian broke the seal with a thought and found maps, orders, and a bottle of dark liquid labeled Soul-Anodyne Stabilizer. He took it all.
"Liam, get us unhooked. Mara, burn the bodies. Make it fast."
He didn't ask. He ordered.
Liam moved to the grappling hooks, his sword cutting the ropes. Mara took a deep breath and let her fire wash over the four corpses. The flesh and bone were burned to ashes in seconds, the rain washing the remains overboard.
Damian walked to the edge, looking at the Crimson patrol barge, now drifting leaderless. He could see more figures on its deck, confused, shouting.
"Change of plan," he called over the rain. "We're taking their boat. It's faster. It has their sigil. It'll get us past any other patrols."
He didn't wait. He jumped the gap, landing on the patrol barge's deck. Five cultists stood there, low-level initiates, their faces pale.
"Your handler is dead," Damian announced, his voice carrying over the rain. "Your adepts are ash. This boat is mine. You have a choice. Jump and swim. Or die where you stand."
They stared at him, at the blood on his hands, at the empty, dead look in his eyes. They saw no mercy there. Only death.
One by one, they dropped their weapons and jumped over the rail into the cold, churning Silverwash.
Damian didn't watch them swim. He turned to the pilot, a cowering man in Crimson livery. "You. You know this boat. You know the river to Seastone. Take us there. Fast. Do anything stupid, and you'll feed the fishes."
The man nodded, shaking, and ran to the wheel.
Liam and Mara jumped across, bringing their sacks of gold. The courier barge captain was left behind, staring, his mouth open in a silent scream of terror.
Damian stood at the prow of the stolen Crimson barge as it powered downriver. The rain washed the blood from his hands and clothes. The poison in his shoulder was a dull throb he ignored.
Mara came to stand beside him. She was quiet for a long time. "You didn't even hesitate," she finally said, her voice low.
"Why would I?" Damian asked, looking at the river ahead. "They were the enemy. They had what we needed. Hesitation gets you killed."
"He gave them a chance to jump," Liam said from behind them, his tone unreadable.
"A calculation," Damian said, not turning. "Killing them would have taken time. Made a mess on the new deck. This was faster. Efficient. If any survive, they'll spread fear. Fear is a weapon too."
Mara looked at him, and for a moment, he saw it in her eyes—not fear of him, but a sharp, cold understanding of what he was. And a decision to stand beside it anyway.
The Crimson barge cut through the water, its black and red flag flying boldly, carrying three wolves who had just stolen the hunter's skin.
Seastone awaited. And beyond it, the sea, the whispers, and the bloodline he needed to cage the void in his soul.