The Cause of Death

My new book “The Cause of Death: A Vulture’s Tale” will be releasing October 31st, so I wanted to drop a preview here! Enjoy! Feel free to like, share and comment, thanks!

Chapter One: The Girl and Her Guardian 

Wind whistle. World shriek. Ocean flood and groan. The bow of my humanity is bent before thee in solemn deference.

The Opening should only be endeavored by the most skilled of masters; those thoroughly versed in what is holy, and with the names of at least nine gods on their tongues. It requires holiness, a place of power and virtue, known to be touched by the fingers of divinities, or, in some cases, angels. Angels will do if god-touched lands cannot be found. 

In my attempts to Open The Door, I have always begun by fasting and spending seven to twelve hours in strenuous prayer. After this is done, I can begin to invoke the elements, specifically the Prime Elements and not the Seven Mortal Elements which are so popular among young wizards today.

Wind, which is breath and life.

Earth, holy soil touched by the fingers of a god.

Fire, which is the substance of the spirit and mutability.

Water, which unites them all and symbolizes the blood of man.

And finally The Fifth. 

-Excerpt from The Eyes That Watch The Dark

~Saint Rafaka of Baas

There was nothing all that special about the village of Servas-Eratum in southern Duma. Like many of the southern mining towns, the ground was filled with tan clay and very little could grow. Small patches of hawk-grass struggled through the dense soil and lived a short, agonized existence before icy snow fell and put it to death. The hawk-grass knew no other life, so it just kept growing and dying, dying and growing. Nothing else ever rose from the soil of Servas-Eratum. Their food-stuffs came from trading their wealth of gems and minerals obtained in the mines, where the young of the city quickly turned old, filled their lungs with black dust and died. 

In season, the grace-flies would fill the village with their blue bioluminescence. The people of the village would often leave out plates of meat scraps to attract the flies, which would hover for a few days and create a beautiful collective shine, eerie in the early dark of fall and winter. 

–

-Belthias

The inn at Servas-Eratum was not a stranger to traveling adventurer parties. Every month or so a band of sellswords or errant knights would stop in for a glass, a few cuts of meat and some warm beds. The presence of a sword or a bow was not enough to turn heads. Neither were pointed ears. Though this region of Middle-Homule was more regularly populated by mortals and dwarves, elves and half-elves were not out of place. 

This particular group of adventurers, Belthias, Jaingen and Sypra, had searched the village for an embarrassingly long time before seeing the name of the inn illuminated by dingy blue, above a tray of hungry grace-flies.

The inn at Servas-Eratum was called “The Inn at Servas-Eratum” because it was the only inn in Servas-Eratum.

Belthias Hardak, called Bel by his friends, Hardak by his employers and “Longsword piece of shit” by his enemies, found his seat in the corner of the inn’s main hall. He was a handsome man in his late twenties with skin the color of wheat, lean muscle wrapped around his limbs, and dark hair tied in a single sheisaka knot above his head. He left his coat and his sword hanging on the back of his chair. He was casual like that, and so was the inn. 

He searched the inn for interesting people and pretty faces. It wasn’t uncommon to see a pretty dancer in these parts, even in a smaller town like this, but The Inn at Servas-Eratum only had men in it.

Go on then. He thought to himself. There will be nothing to distract me from my plans.

“Don’t fall asleep too quickly, Bel.” a light skinned man with a scar on his cheek and a coat on his shoulders walked over. He had a large glass of ale in each hand, foamy and frothing over the rim of the glass. Unlike Bel, Jaingen Larsh hadn’t disarmed. His long knives were still hidden on the belt beneath his coat. He was quieter and more subtle than the comparatively brutish Belthias. 

Belthias nodded as Jaingen set down the ale. One for each of them. Heavy glasses running over with lovely foam. 

“And I guess I’m paying for myself,” said Sypra. She was a half-elf, or, more accurately, a one third elf. Keeping track of the exact percentages felt tedious, like something that only a high elf would even care to do. Unlike Bethias, who had slung his sword over the back of his chair, she had put her bow and yes, the quiver full of sharp arrows right on the table.

Sypra was dressed in a green tunic and a brown cloak. She had dirty blonde hair that was almost brown, and it was tied in a tight braid behind her head. Short bangs trickled over her gentle eyebrows. Her ears were pointed, but just a little bit pointed, pointed enough to attract slurs from human drunks at worse bars, and she was pretty, darned pretty, by no fault of her own. She was still dressed for the troll hunt, which the party had just finished (two trolls dead) and had not made any attempt to beautify herself. But that was the power of thirty-five percent elven blood. Her face always looked clean and fresh. They called it “Glamor” or something like that. 

“Jaingen paid for me.” Bel answered her.

Jaingen shrugged, “I told him I’d buy him a pint if he stabbed a troll in the penis.” The rogue had a deep voice, but he had a habit of speaking too softly. You had to listen close if you wanted to hear him.

“Well, why didn’t you offer to buy me a pint if I stabbed a troll in the penis?” Sypra crossed her arms, pouting.

Both the men stared at her for a moment, then at each other.

“Syp, I think you know why . . .” Bel said with a nervous chuckle.

“No.” Her expression was deadly serious, “No. I don’t know why. Tell me.”

The two men stared at each other. 

Bel gave Jaingen a look that said, “Do you want to take this?”

Jaingen responded with a look that said, “Nope. All you, buddy.”

“Well it just . . . it just feels wrong, you know?”

“No, I don’t know.” The way she looked at him. She knew. She knew they didn’t want to make her do anything to a penis. That would have been wrong, right? 

Bel scratched the back of his neck. Only one way out of this. Go on then, “I’ll  . . . Um . . . I’ll go get you a drink.”

“Sounds good.” And there was the elven percent, in her smug smile, but by the gods, by the whole Sereniad Pantheon she was pretty. Beautiful? Maybe not. But pretty? Yes. Pretty as the rivers in hell. Her golden brown eyes shown with lovely disdain as he gave up the struggle and surrendered to her will.

Bel scooted his chair out and walked toward the bar, leaving Jaingen alone, poor bastard, alone with Sypra.

She’s just in her dumps because she missed that shot from the cliff. Go on then, Bel. Buy the woman a drink. Improve her temperament. Some water ought to rebalance that terrible humor.

Bel thought. Syp could be petty, but he liked that about her. He liked a lot of things about her. That was why tonight was the night. There wasn’t a lot to do here in Eratum. It was a city of mines mostly. Three nights from now the village was holding their yearly “Crystal Festival” Bel didn’t know the details, but it was some kind of feast in honor of their god, Branuuc the Mighty. 

Bel was going to ask Sypra to go with him to the festival. That was his idea. He had had the idea first. So, when Jaingen confided in him in his quiet, shifty voice that he was finally going to confess his feelings and ask their elfish companion to the local Crystal Festival, the two men had nearly come to blows. He’d had half a mind to dash his best friend’s brains out with a rock. 

“We’ll both ask her!” Jaingen had cried out when Bel got him in a headlock, “We’ll both ask her and let her decide!”

That idea was terrifying, but Bel was a man, and he could face the fear. He faced down monsters all the time. It was a better idea than beating the tar out of each other anyway. 

He glanced back at their table. Jaingen and Sypra didn’t appear to be talking. Jaingen was looking at his knives. Sypra was looking at her shoes.

This was your opportunity, you shifty fool! Go on! I’m letting you go first!

Bel groaned and made his way up to the bar, where he was greeted by a fat, red bearded dwarf with a scar down the middle of his forehead. 

He waited his turn and said, “I’ll have two.” 

“Two what, lad?” The barkeeper talked like he had pebbles in his throat.

“Two of whatever you have that’s strong. The kind of drink that makes brave men braver and maids more inclined.”

The big fat dwarf cackled at that and smacked his huge belly, which shook, bless him. “You’ll be wanting the Giant’s Nectar.” laughed the barkeep, “I just got a new barrel open.”

“That’ll do fine,” said Bel. He wasn’t looking at the dwarf when he spoke. He kept looking back at his two friends. 

I have to get there before Jaingen stakes his claim, or he makes a fool of himself and has to put a knife to his own throat.

He watched two old dalet men with cracked, tan skin and white hair ramble at each other while he waited. 

“Ye know, every time ay smell horse dung, it reminds me of me home an me pappy.”

“Ay, thems was better days.”

“So it be. I would roll in the dung and member me whole youth, but me wife would have none of me.”

“She’d toss ye to the fiends of hell!”

“Ay, but I’d finally be memberin’ the years I lost to me ale!”

The two men both cackled uproariously at this. Bel smiled.

At length Belthias was handed two tankards of something yellow that fizzed and bubbled. He took a sniff and it smelled kind of like the burning acid a young hydra once spat at him. 

“This’ll do, I hope.” He took a big sip and tasted the agonizing burn. It tasted like pure pain. He hated it. He went back over to his table. 

His heart was pounding. True fear. Why was this more dreadful than any monster or dark cavern he had faced in his seven years as an errant adventurer? 

“Is that for me?” Sypra looked up when he drew close and pointed at one of the tankards, “What is it?”

“Sypra Sprinthel Vistlehem.” has said her full name, or at least most of it.

“Um . . . yes? What is it?”

“Will you . . . can you . . .”

Jaingen was watching him with wide, frightful eyes.

Go on then, you coward! Throw yourself to the fires! 

“Will you please like to . . . come to the Crystal Festival with me?” His voice, usually bold and strong, had wavered.

But wow. He had said it. He had really said it. 

She was just staring at him in response, her expression vacant, eyes arched, like she was assessing a squad of goblins, looking for their weak points. 

“If I say no, can I still have the drink?” she asked. 

One arrow, well aimed, straight to his bleeding heart. 

He plopped down in his seat and she took her drink from him. 

Uncaring trollop. You’ve killed me.

She took a big gulp of the deadly acid and appeared mostly unaffected, “Seriously, if you have something to ask me, just ask me next time, Bel.” She said, “Don’t act all weird about it. I’ve seen you two whispering all conspiratorially since yesterday. I thought you were going to try to murder me.”

Bel looked over at Jaingen. Jaingen shook his head. Bel gave him a look that said, “I suffered, now you have to.” Jaingen took a small, unmasculine sip of his normal ale.

“So Sypra.” said Jaingen. Sypra was staring across the room, so he had to repeat himself. Shifty bastard never talked loud enough, “I say Sypra.”

“Yeah, Jaingen? What is it?”

She looked over at him, but got distracted again and started looking across the bar.

“Sypra. The Crystal Festival-”

“No thanks.” she said, still looking at something else.

The spirit left Jaingen’s body. 

Two arrows. Two hits. Two deaths.

Sypra took another big gulp, “You boys good? Did you get it all out of you?”

“Yes.” the two said with accidental similitude. 

“Good,” she said, “Then check that out.”

She pointed and both men followed her finger across the bar, where a pair of figures had just entered.

The first was a knight, or, at least, some kind of armored warrior, plated out in black metal. It was an intimidating suit with broad, spiked pauldrons, a helmet fitted with long bull horns with the visor lowered. He had a black shield strapped to his arm and a long black spear on his back. The man had to be at least two and a half claw tall, and no part of his body was visible. 

The second figure was a girl, and what a girl! She was all white. White like bone, both her hair and her skin, and her eyes were ruby red. One might have mistaken her for a dark elf at first glance, but her ears and features were distinctly human, and no dark elf had red eyes like that. Her hair, with straight cut bangs, hung low, down to her thighs, loose and tied in a tail at the back of her head. Her clothes were finely tailored, but eye-catching and peculiar. It was all night black with clasps and straps of silver. Her long midsection was completely bare, white and bordering skeletal in gauntness. She wore a black bottom-piece that freed the thighs, the whiteness terminated by sheer black leggings at the knees, cutting off at black knee-high boots with heels. Her top was a dark, dense fabric, wrapping around her snug above the ribs and below the collarbone, with two black straps fastened to her black neck piece. Her arms at the shoulder were bare also, with sheer black sleeves and long black gloves, and upon her shoulder was a black cape which went down to the hips, cut in sharp points like the wings of a bat.

In her hands she held a twisted wooden rod, bent into a spiral knot at the end. It was long enough for her to lean on, and she did. She looked tired, like she might fall over if she didn’t have the staff to lean against. She looked brittle, like sticks and stones could really break her bones, but there was also a certain vivacity in her red eyes. She searched the tavern nervously and stayed in the shadow of the black knight.

Bel whistled quietly and watched the woman and the knight take a seat at the bar. He took a tiny sip of his giant nectar and winced from the pain, then said, “What say we, my brother? Since we’ve both been slain by our fair companion, shall we go on? Choose a different bird to hunt?”

Jaingen could hardly take his eyes off the pale maid, “Indeed. Indeed. Our previous fall may be the work of fate.” he said, stringing together far more words than was common for him, “That we might rise up and rescue this unfortunate maiden.”

Bel looked back at her. She held her staff with both hands and glanced around the bar nervously, “You think she’s a captive?”

“Of course she is.” said Jaingen, “Look at the size of that man keeping her.”

Bel took another small sip of his poisonous hydra acid, “I think she’s a sorceress.” He said, “No one but a sorceress dresses like that.”

“She could be a whore.” Sypra chimed in, “Whores also dress like that.”

“Whores don’t have magic staffs.” said Bel.

“Maybe it’s a walking stick.” said Jaingen, “Maybe she’s crippled.”

“No.” said Bel, “I know a sorceress when I see one. She’s a sorceress.”

“There is only one way to find out.” said Jaingen, grinning.

“You guys are going to try and make a move on her?” asked Sypra.

Both men nodded.

“Count me in.” she said.

Bel furrowed his brow, “You like women? I didn’t know you were like that.”

Sypra shrugged, never taking her eyes off the girl with the long stick, “I haven’t decided yet.”

—

Jaingen was chosen to go first, since he had gone last in the previous challenge. He siddled over to the bar counter where the girl was sitting. There was an empty seat, so he took it. 

The girl glanced over at him, but didn’t say anything, the black pinpricks at the center of her red eyes drank him in. She looked concerned.

The black knight also turned his head and gazed down at him. Jaingen felt his blood run cold. 

He sat there in silence for just a moment, then pushed his seat out, stood up and walked back to his table.

“You didn’t even say anything!” Sypra whined. 

“Didn’t need to.” said the rogue, “That knight. I could feel his ire upon me, like he was cursing me. I have a sense for this kind of thing, for danger. He was ready to strike me down if I made even one move closer to her, to his hostage.”

“Some rescuer you are.” Sypra rolled her eyes, “Let me give it a try.”

Sypra said that, took another gulp and finished her acidic drink, then she stood to her feet and marched over to the bar, like a woman on a mission. Bel and Jaingen quietly cheered for her. 

Sypra didn’t take a seat, she just marched over to the girl and stood in front of her, “Hi, I’m Sypra. Welcome to Servas-Eratum.” She tried to ignore the knight. Jaingen had said that the knight was watching him the whole time, but Sypra couldn’t see his eyes, so she didn’t really know for sure where he was looking.

“Um . . . hi.” The girl had a soft voice. She fidgeted while she spoke. It was a good voice. Sypra liked it. She wanted to hear more of it.

“This should be the part where you tell me your name.” said Sypra, trying to evoke playfulness and not demand. 

“Um . . . well . . . some people call me . . . Vulture.” The girl said. She looked up and glanced into Sypra’s eyes, then she looked past her, eyeing different people across the tavern, entrances and exits. 

“That’s . . . an interesting name. Why do they call you that?”

“Oh.” said Vulture, as though suddenly realizing the conversation wasn’t over yet, “Who knows?”

“So, what do you do?” asked Sypra.

Vulture sighed, “A little bit of this. A little bit of that.”

“Okay. Well, it was nice meeting you.” said Sypra.

Vulture smiled, and it was a nice smile, but she didn’t say “It was nice to meet you” back. 

The one-third-elf returned to her companions in failure and disgrace.

She plopped down in her seat, reached for Bel’s tankard and took a big gulp, “I don’t think she likes girls.” she said. 

But Sypra had noticed something that the others hadn’t, implements of the arcane. The girl has a long dagger at her hip, one with an ornate sheath and mystical patterns. Not the kind that was usually used for battle, but an arthema, the kind often used for magical rituals and sacrifices. She also had a bag with a number of sealed scrolls sticking out. Then that staff might have been more than just a walking stick for a crippled whore . . .

“Well, I suppose I’m last up,” said Bel.

“Be careful of the knight,” said Jaingen.

“I hope he stabs you,” said Sypra. 

Bel took his drink back and took a big gulp. It almost made him scream, but the pain also distracted him from the fear. 

“Okay.” he said, “I go off then. Here I go.” 

He stood up, then sat down again. 

“Here I go.” he repeated, stood up, then sat down again.

“Are you going to go?” asked Sypra.

Bel pounded the table, then he pounded it again, louder. He pounded it so loud that “Vulture” actually turned her head and looked at him. She actually smiled.

Bel stood and began walking over to her. He looked at her and she looked back at him. Maybe this would turn out okay. She was smiling at him. Maybe she was lonely and she wanted company. Maybe she wanted male company. Maybe for once he would have a bit of luck. Maybe a woman would actually notice him, like him, and-

A shriek of wind whisked in through the open door. Wood smacked hard against the stone of the inner wall. Everyone, including Bel the Brave, turned to look and see who was entering. 

An old man with a grizzled gray beard and wild gray hair stumbled in from the cold darkness. He limped slowly forward, entering the bar. 

“Sir, could ye close the door behind ye?” One of the old men cried out, “Tis a frigid evenin’!”

Bel saw drool running down the grizzled man’s beard, and his eyes, there was something off about them. He wasn’t blinking. 

Just a weird old drunk with no manners. Thought Bel, and turned his attention back to the girl, but she was staring at the open doorway, out into the darkness. 

Bel took another two steps forward, but then there was a scrambling sound, feet shuffling quickly and wildly across the wooden floor. Bel was too slow to turn, too slow to notice, and the dirty old drunk came at him like a wolf at a sheep! 

Belthias Hardak barely had time to scream as the stranger sunk his flat, rotten teeth deep into his neck, grabbing hold of a vein, pulling back and tearing with unholy might. Bel smelled a putrid stench of blood and rot, gargled and collapsed to the floor, bleeding a puddle of ruby colored blood as his life poured out.

He breathed one final breath and got one final look. The man, the one who had killed him, he was covered by a swarm of buzzing flies.