Ardenel Venit wiped the slurry of sweat and dust from his forehead with the cloth of his gauntlet, leaving streaks of black across his sun-tanned skin. His heaving breaths joined the chorus of his comrades around him, all hunched in exhaustion, hands on knees or swords or spear hafts for support. The sound of metal clanging pierced the low huffing like chimes in wind, as the equipment of slain Greys unceremoniously fell through their dissolving bodies to the ground. Ardenel angled his eyes upward through errant clumps of black hair toward his allies.
"How many are left?" he asked raggedly.
"It seems they've all been dealt with, Honorable Ardenel," a woman's voice to his right answered smoothly. She breathed slowly and easily through her nose, seemingly unbothered by the carnage surrounding them. Her thin blue gauntlet-sword at her side shone brilliantly in the mid-day sun, causing Ardenel to turn away.
"Cut the 'Honorable' crap, Linoor. If you wish to demean me then don't be a coward about it," he said before spitting into the swirling dust at his feet.
The two stood among a larger group of twelve armored individuals in a sea of black dust. The dust amassed in heaps around discarded weapons and armor, where not minutes earlier there had been the corpses of feral Greys.
"These things fight without a fear of death. That's what makes them so powerful," Ardenel said.
"They are Greys, abominations of man without mind nor heart. It is their nature to seek death," Linoor responded coolly.
"I killed twelve of these damned things. Twelve!" Ardenel exclaimed excitedly. "How many for you?"
"We had four casualties today. Three men and a woman," Linoor answered.
"Ah, right. Expensive ones?"
"One former soldier, three scavenger hires."
"Damn," Ardenel cursed. "Wish it had been the other way around. It's always better when the expensive hires get cut down - fewer expenses when you get back. These scavs are just happy picking up what they find." As he spoke he noticed two dirty men in ragged leather armor picking through piles of dust for prizes among the dead. Scavs were pathetic creatures, but then again if they weren't so pathetic they wouldn't be scavs.
Linoor nodded absently. "We've made it to the keep, Honorable Ardenel."
A large stone castle loomed over the square that held the exhausted group. Lookout spires stood at six corners of the massive structure, their dark windows like black eyes surveilling the town below. The keep itself was estimated by scouts to be twelve stories tall, and combined with its perch atop a hill at the center of town, it was tall enough to be seen from nearly twenty miles away. Some of the less experienced members of the group lay on their backs gawking at the enormity of the castle. Most of those who made a life of scavenging in Danet had never set foot outside of their village, no less visited a castle. Ardenel, however, hailed from Capira, the largest city in Vanodel, and had seen far more impressive buildings in his life.
Ardenel checked his windup watch on his wrist. Thirty-six hundred, midday. They had entered the town gates some three hours ago and fought their way to the gates of the keep at the center of the walled town. Hordes of violent Greys had beset them immediately, and the entire push for the keep had been a wild melee. Despite his outward callousness, he was glad that most of his hired soldiers still surrounded him. Everyone had heard the rumors that an excisor, an intelligent Grey that used ancient Danet magicks to fight, protected this keep.
Ardenel unlooped his canteen from his waist and removed the stopper.
"Linoor," he said between deep pulls of the ale within, "get two scavs to grab axes from the cart and have them get to work on the gate."
Linoor walked off without a word, graceful as a cat, her long silver hair seemed completely devoid of dust or sweat despite the events of the past three hours. Ardenel watched her lithe body as she strode toward the two pathetic scavs searching through the dust. She was a former duellist, and quite accomplished, even winning men's competitions in Capira. He knew she was having the two most pathetic scavs work to avoid his capricious ire. It annoyed him, but he also reveled in her small acts of rebellion. She still naively held onto hope that she could defy him one day - to escape her bonds and return to her former life. But her father's crushing debt to Ardenel's family ensured that she would stay at his side as his prized bodyguard for the rest of her days. Eventually, when she finally lost hope, he would make her more than just a bodyguard.
Ardenel took out a small tobacco roll and a metal box. He placed the roll in his mouth and opened the box, revealing a smoldering red stone within. A firestarter, one of the most well-known and common treasures found within Danet. It was common enough that every noble could purchase one, and useful enough that every noble did. An eternal flame housed in a cool metal box, requiring no skill whatsoever on the part of the operator. This small artifact was worth a week's wages for a skilled soldier here in Danet, or three months for a hired scav. He pushed the tip of his tobacco roll into the smoldering gem and ignited it before closing the box and placing it back into his pocket.
The sounds of wood splintering echoed through the square as the two scavs got to work breaking down the gate to the keep. It would be slow-going work, but it was only midday, so there were still thirty-six hours of daylight before nightfall. They had plenty of time to work at the door. Ardenel leaned back on his elbows and looked around as he smoked. Decrepit stone houses surrounded the square, each looking the same as every other town or village he had come across in Danet during his year here. He heard once, while drinking with an inquirer from the Rolakk College, that the buildings in Danet were believed to be nearly 800 years old. He wasn't sure if he believed it, though, or if the inquirer were making up stories to make himself seem more important. People always tried to impress Ardenel in conversations because of his father's importance in Rolakkhad. The Duke of Capira, second only in power to the Red King himself, Barde Venit was the one who sent Ardenel here in the first place. Any man can make a name for himself in unexplored lands like Danet. Ardenel recoiled angrily at the memory, and stood up to find a target for his rage.
"Why are these pathetic scavs taking forever on this door?" he shouted over to Linoor, who sat cross-legged on an empty fountain at the center of the square.
"You are lucky it is taking them a while," Linoor answered unperturbed.
"And why, oh wise stoic one, am I lucky to have such lazy men - and women - under my command?" Ardenel demanded.
Linoor glared at him from the corner of her eye before responding: "Great treasure is protected by even greater defenses. They are not lazy, the door is simply thick."
Ardenel mulled over her words as he took another pull from his canteen. He imagined rooms full of shining gold, immaculate tapestries across the walls, firestarters and floats and other treasures in every drawer. He smiled a wide drunken grin.
"You'd better be right," he mused as he watched the two axe-wielding scavs taking turns chopping at the gate.
"Forty-nine," Linoor said under her breath. Ardenel ignored the comment, lost in thought.
The fatter of the two chopping scavs leaned back and swung hard into the splintered wood, causing a massive explosion of wood shards and boards to fly backward into the square.
Ardenel stood up in excitement and began to shout, but he was slammed to the ground by Linoor before he could get a word out. Ale splashed into his face as he sputtered in a heap on the dusty ground.
"Why, you -" he began to shout before he noticed Linoor had unsheathed her blade. He scanned the square nervously for Greys before noticing the two scav corpses at the gate, axes embedded in them up to the haft.
Linoor dove to the side as Ardenel heard a whistle and a thunk as a knife drove itself into the canteen in front of his face. He whimpered as he threw the leaking canteen to the ground and leapt into the empty fountain, just barely peeking his eyes up over the edge. More corpses lay on the floor. More than Ardenel could count in that moment. These ones did not turn to dust.
A black-robed figure stepped out from a missing log in the thick gate and turned around to inspect the gate. It put its hands on its hips and stared from top to bottom as it tapped its foot in a human-like way. Ardenel knew this was no human, however. It was an excisor.
Another figure leapt over the lip of the fountain next to him, causing Ardenel to stumble backwards and pull out his belt knife in defense. It was Linoor.
"On your feet!" she hissed angrily as she extended a hand. Ardenel hesitated from the ground. "I will not ask again!" she seethed through clenched teeth. Finally, Ardenel reached out and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet, still gripping his belt knife with all his strength. The excisor had turned around and was staring at them while tapping its chin. Its face was deathly pale, but it seemed all too human. Nothing like a Grey, at least.
"It's a person…" he whispered as they climbed from the fountain. Linoor had already begun sprinting away from the keep down the town's main thoroughfare, so Ardenel broke into a run to keep up. He turned to look over his shoulder as they exited the square, and swore he saw the excisor waving to him from the field of corpses.