109. Raengar
Raengar gripped the small piece of paper in his hand tightly. The woman had asked him to meet her in a nondescript butcher’s shop at the edge of a small town. She had the results and knew exactly who had ordered the Waterlily Rine to use against Unit One. Whoever had ordered it was powerful enough that she felt she needed to flee the University for safety.
It may have been foolish, but Raengar trusted the woman. He did not, however, trust anything about the situation. It would be so easy for this to be compromised. Raengar should have left a soldier there to keep eyes on it, even if the woman had ferociously denied him.
When Raengar got to the butcher’s shop, he paused. There was a light on in the hut, a small little candle, and through the window he could see her standing, facing away from him.
Sweat trickled down his back, and his instincts prickled. Something wasn’t right.
Raengar pushed forward anyway, opening the door. The woman turned to him and let out a muffled scream. She stood with her hands bound in front of her, and a fabric gag in her mouth, her eyes wide with fear.
Raengar looked around for a threat, and only when he looked up did he find his attacker.
A man, haggard and homeless, was perched on a beam above him, watching Raengar with crazed curiosity.
“So, it was the King of Ice meddling in our affairs,” the man said, his head cocking to the side sharply, like a bird’s. “I would recognize the thump of that dragon-demon’s wings anywhere. I told them it was someone powerful.”
The man swung down and dropped down to the floor, positioning himself between Raengar and the door. He was frighteningly skinny, dressed in nothing more than rags and dirt, but he had a bloody, rusty, wicked ax tucked in his waistband. “You’re early, usurper. I haven’t even started on her yet.” The man pulled the ax free and motioned to the woman with the dark blade.
Raengar’s lip curled over his teeth. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Destroying evidence against my King.” The man smiled, showing off the five rotting teeth he had managed to keep in his skull, his greasy, chin length hair swaying back and forth. “Time to die.”
Without any more words, or taunts, the man swung his ax down with surprising speed, and Raengar barely had time to duck under the blade. He stepped to the side and had to duck again as the haggard man swung at him with crazed belligerence. Raengar pulled his sword free, just in time to block a blow that would have lobbed off his head.
“I’ve heard stories about you, Butcher King.”
“Who the fuck are you?”
“I am Rivey.”
Rivey ducked a blast of ice Raengar sent his way, almost folding his spine in two before popping up like a long reed. As he popped up, a silversteel necklace that had been hiding in his shirt peeked out, the clean silver sharply contrasted against the dirty skin of Rivey”s emaciated neck. Without thinking, Raengar reached out, fisted the necklace, and ripped it off the little man’sneck.
It had House of Alloy’s sigil of a Morningstar stamped on the front. King M??r had sent him.
Raengar threw the necklace on the ground. “Your King sent you to die, Rivey.”
Rivey smiled, showing off a row of rotting brown teeth. “I will not die here. I have killed too many before you to die here and promised my King I would return to kill for him again.”
Rivey slashed his blade and sliced at Raengar’s stomach. Raengar lurched back, just barely in time, and Rivey’s blade sliced open the top layer of Raengar’s leather armor.
Raengar used his proximity and backhanded Rivey across the face with enough force to send him sprawling to the floor. But almost like a spider, Rivey rolled to his feet. From his dirty waistband he pulled two knives and threw them both at Raengar. Raengar blocked one with his sword, iced away the other, but was unprepared for the third knife that Rivey sent plunging into his right shoulder. Raengar roared his displeasure, as Rivey lunged and landed his fist to Raengar’s face, splitting open his bottom lip.
“I expected more from the Butcher King,” Rivey taunted, dancing on his toes, and flashing his disgusting teeth again. “You are a legend in my House, a hero—”
Rivey’s voice choked off as he gasped, his fingers fluttering over his chest and his mouth opening and closing like a fish gasping for air as Raengar straightened up to his full height, towering over Rivey as the man’s heart froze into a solid block in his chest.
Raengar sneered at Rivey and reached down to grip the man’s jaw in his hand. “Go to hell.”
Rivey’s eyes went wide, as Raengar pulled the knife from his shoulder and used it to slice the man’s neck. Rivey’s body fell to the floor.
Raengar moved to the woman and pulled the cloth out of her mouth.
“Gods bless you,” she gasped as Raengar sliced the rope from her hands with Rivey’s blood-stained knife.
“Are there more men?”
“No. No, it was him. He killed them all.” The woman’s voice choked up, but relief splintered through Raengar.
“Do you have the results?”
“I— yes.” The woman reached into the deep pocket of her robes and with trembling fingers, she held up a small roll of paper.
Raengar snatched it, ignoring the throb from the wound in his shoulder and the smears of blood he left over the pristine parchment.
At the words he read, a smile spread over his mouth, and muscles he didn’t even know were tense relaxed. Thank K??n. This would be more than enough to put M??r in a cell, and enough to convict him of conspiracy against the Realms.