Feral and Saphris, Prologue

Winter was by far his least favorite season.

The coldness of the air, the brusqueness of the hardened snow, the dull gray of the sky, all of it was to his disdain. So, it is only fair he charged extra for a mission during those miserable inclimate months.

Feral cursed the deceptively deep snow. This year, it had reached record levels, reaching high enough to send little chunks of snow cascading into his boots at every opportunity. His feet throbbed from the cold, and he stopped where he walked. A quick dive into his satchel brought out a waterskin, of which he drank a few thirsty gulps. The one thing about winter he liked was that the arduous weather kept his water a brisk cold. That was one of his strange quirks; he favored cold drinks year-round. He would take an icy wine to drink if he was sitting on the ramparts of some castle, looking at the view during the freezing season rather than a mug of steaming grog. With a sigh, he returned the half-empty waterskin to the satchel and cast his eyes across the grey horizon. As he thought, a snowstorm gradually crawled its way toward him. Maybe he could make it to the nearby village before the storm truly set in. With a few more miles ahead of him, Feral shuddered off the cold and quickened his march through the ivory landscape.

Through a tavern door stumbled a grouchy, near-frozen Feral. Like a wet dog, he shook himself violently, sending shards of ice flying in all directions. And, similar to when a dog shakes itself off next to a group of swimmers, yells of objection were sounded and people made threats while they brushed themselves off. Feral ignored them easily and walked toward the bar, drawing backward his cowl, revealing his red face and crazed eyes. He hated the winter.

“Wine,” he gruffly requested when he had sat himself at the counter. The barkeep obliged, and a tankard of watered-down wine was brought to him. Almost without thinking, Feral brought the mug to his lips, but quickly set it back down.

“It’s too warm,” he said, and the barkeep took the tankard back, and ran to break and icicle from the ice-house behind the warm building. The rather confused (and more than slightly unnerved) barkeep broke the stick of ice on the edge of the metal tankard, and set the larger half in the wine, leaving the top protruding obnoxiously upward like a maypole. Feral was not amused.

He divided the ice up further with a knife once the barkeep left to attend to other tenants, and sipped from it after he let it sit and get cold. He looked through the bar, and almost let his gaze sweep past everybody before returning to his drink. But he stopped. His gaze fell upon someone who was dressed to the utmost to remain hidden. A brown smock, several layers of trousers and a wool hat would have rendered him unnoticed. The marks on his hands were from soot and ashes. This man obviously worked with fire somehow, and the only profession that worked with fire for the span of the entire year was a blacksmith. Feral studied him closely. The man’s hands gingerly handled his steaming mug. A blacksmith couldn’t care less about how hot his drink was. That, and his hands didn’t seem to be calloused or hardened in the least. They were a bit grungy, which was usually enough to convince most, but Feral noted the inconsistency. This was no blacksmith.

King Vincent, the Heart of Iron. The blacksmith was a favorite disguise of his, because he could pull it off fairly well. Feral calmly turned back to the counter. There he was. Perhaps he wouldn’t have to trek all the way to the castle to complete his mission after all. The five leagues lying between would be difficult and long to traverse in the current weather, which only seemed to be getting worse. Here was his target, sitting several steps behind him. He wasn’t surrounded by his royal guard, he had no armor on his neck. He smiled with almost childish relief. A large piece of his job had been emptied of most of its difficulty. A quick dart would relieve the mission. But wait…no, not a dart. That was too obvious. People would suspect foul play immediately. Now, some hemlock in his majesty’s grog would do the trick. Feral nodded to himself, but quickly discarded the idea. How would he get the poison in the king’s mug without him noticing? Feral was great at sneaking, but a confrontation held to high of a risk for being caught. He glanced down the bar and looked at the other men. One was clearly a farmer, another was a stable boy. Two others were both servants to some local vassal out for the evening. Stable boys or farmers weren’t easy to patronize, but servants valued their expensive attire more than most as a symbol of their status and held their lord in high regard. A demeaning insult or telltale splash of wine would set off a heated argument, and maybe a nice brawl. With a sly grin, Feral downed the rest of his wine and stood up, feigning drunkenness as he shakily stumbled toward the other bar goers.

“Good evening, ladies and gentllllenn…” he slurred with a dazed grin, making his way towards his two temporary targets. “ I thought I should tell you...you’ve got somethin…” he hiccuped for added effect, “...somethin on your shirt!”

Then, he set his eyes on a small plate of steaming, salted potatoes in front of one of the servants, and uttered a nigh-comical “Ooh!” before daintily snatching one up. He held it under his nose and sniffed it, and quickly ate it when the servant reached for it. He gave a childish smile of victory, and reached for another, shoving it into the servant’s face.

“You have one too!” he quipped. The servant had had enough. He stood up and took the offending stranger by the collar, jerking him one way. Feral swung his arm in mock alarm, knocking over a tankard of drink on the bar, and ale spilled out across the counter, and onto the lap of its drinker who, until now, had been watching the proceedings with slight amusement.

“‘Ey! Wot are you doin’?!” Shouted the other man as he stood up. The drink was dripping from his lap, and he didn’t look happy about it. Feral started giggling uncontrollably.

”Now why did you go and piss your pants! Ever heard of a privy?” He then hooted loudly, and got a stiff cuff across the face for it. At least he was let go of, and stumbled backward to another table, upturning it’s contents on those seated there. They too got to their feet, and readied themselves for fisticuffs. The blow had stunned Feral, but he cleared his head with a few slow breaths as he lay on the floor, covered in ale and cheap food. When he sat up, there was the fight. Five people went at it violently, skill and knowhow tossed out the window as they punched at each other like animals. Other bar goers tried to break up the melee, but were sucked into it as well, adding to the crescendo. Soon, tankards flew, plates crashed and tables flipped as the entire bar descended to chaos.

Now was Feral’s chance. He abandoned his tipsy facade and darted nimbly between people, neatly dodging fists, elbows and chairs as he made his way toward King Vincent, who was occupying himself with clubbing the occasional attacker. With a swift motion, Feral seized a small dagger from the belt of someone he cared not to know, quickly found its balance, and spun it between his fingers before throwing it in a well-practiced overhand motion.

The gurgling of the dying king was unheard in the loudness of the fight. The knife had struck his throat, severing his jugular. He now laid on the floor, unmoving but still barely alive, eyes wide with panic. Feral sauntered up to him and knelt on one knee.

“It’s nothing personal, trust me,” he reassured the monarch, “but orders are orders, and my masters say you must die,”

Feral wasn’t without morals. Letting anybody suffer a slow death was very arbitrary to his ways, so he swiftly finished the job with a smooth swipe of his wrist, ending the pain of his victim. He then tossed the knife aside, took a sip from a random tankard and pulled the cowl of his cloak over his head before walking, calm and collected, out of the tavern and like a wraith into the stormy night.

*Note

This is the first chapter in a developing story that I am writing alongside another talented writer I went to school with.