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***

Glass chinked and liquid sloshed as Ardal drained the glass dry, sighing softly as redolent liquor burned its way down his throat. For a few precious moments it seemed that the world was a better place whilst his tongue tingled and head spun pleasantly, the boundaries of his awareness extending no further than the drunken haze in which he retreated away from the many and richly varied problems that afflicted his life. And then he opened his eyes.
The pure and blinding light of the desert sun shone bright even inside the bar, scalding rays of it piercing through slatted windows of the tavern and boring deep into his brain with its painful, blinding sting. Raising a hand to shade his vision, he lamented bitterly the ill fated adventures that had brought him to the sprawling forest of pale orange stone that was the city of Goldring. Not that there was anywhere else to go. The wilder lands of Vilous were dangerous at the best of times, as numerous and varied as their inhabitants, and whilst each had carved out their own corners from the chaos only Goldring truly catered to them all. Light-footed feathered Nevreans found work amidst the slow and steady Augudner; the Southern Sergals of Clan Leono who had claimed the city as their own since time immemorial welcomed them with open arms, strangers from far lands who brought wealth and vibrancy to the heart of the desert. And the larger, darker Northern Sergals...

...Were fighting again, he heard, following the direction of the tan-furred bartender's gaze with a sneer of disdain curling his lips. Amidst a sparkling sea of broken glass and dropped coins a pair of Northerners wrestled and snarled savagely, drawing long stripes of red over each other's shoulders with their talons in a flurry of teeth, claws and flying tufts of thick, white fur. Furniture clattered and broke as others leapt to their feet and quickly joined in the fray, shouting encouragement and taking bets. The rest of the bar's patrons kept their distance; they were starting to get used to these distressingly frequent outbursts, he thought. Ardal didn't need a second glance to sense the disgust of Southerner and Nevrean alike, who thought their ilk little more than uncivilised barbarians. Nor the nature of the combatants on the floor, one of whom by now had his partner in a headlock and was smashing her angular snout repeatedly into a table. Many of them would sport bald patches about the hips where close-fitting armour had worn away parts of their coat. They'd be distressingly thin. And they'd be desperate. He knew because he was one of them, and considered himself lucky for it. There were plenty of bones mouldering beneath northern snows that weren't so fortunate.
He flicked the bartender a few coins and hurriedly stepped over the squabbling pair into the wide, airy city streets eager to leave behind the stifling interior of the bar before more trouble arrived. It always did. Though people smiled and greeted each other in the as warmly as ever, tensions were brewing beneath the polite facade. The Northern Sergals weren't welcome. They had trickled into the city for nearly a decade, but in the last few months that trickle had become a torrent. Rumours of the war that had bloodied the snows of the Northern homeland, distant Tatola, for a full decade were filtering through- rumours that the war had ended. Now that the ravaged remnants of the defeated armies had started to arrive in a search for sanctuary it wasn't just gossip anymore. The citizens of Goldring found it hard to ignore the something when it turned up on their doorstep. People were angry, and scared. The Northerners who were the bringers of this ill news were a convenient target to accuse as the cause of this shadow cast so suddenly across the desert dunes.
More and more often scenes just like the one he had witnessed were repeating themselves in the outer rings of the city as refugees flocked to the desert in droves. The sun burned their fair skin and stung their eyes, but each who made the perilous trek of them knew that something worse lurked in their snowy homelands. Tales of terror were on everyone's lips. He could feel it in the air, see it painted onto the sandstone walls in the shape of graffiti and lurid, yellow eyes that seemed to stalk you with their lidless glare. It had always been said by the superstitious that Death had yellow eyes. General Rain, who three months ago had succeeded in stamping out the last resistance on her claim to Tatola had yellow eyes.
Ardal had his own reasons for wanting to avoid their gaze.
He squinted as his eyes adjusted to the unfettered brightness of the cloudless sky, then took himself off at a brisk walk to leave the sounds of muffled destruction in his wake as the rattle of armour and indistinct, higher pitched Southern voices beginning to rise above the din, followed swiftly by pained howls and thwacks as the clubs of the guards went to eager work. True to its name, the districts of Goldring were laid out in a series of concentric circles, each separated by walls; each street necessarily curving slightly when not leading directly to the centre like the spokes of a wheel. Of course, this had the effect of hiding someone from sight if they moved fast enough...
Slipping into a shaded side-street between two squat shops, he let himself pause briefly to steady his legs. Wobbling from the drunken buzzing in his head, he ran a long-fingered hand over his brow and pulled the muslin keffiyeh he wore lower. For a few long moments all he could hear was his own breath and heart pounding loud in his ears, the blistering heat of the day working its way beneath his fur like a tingling itch. Turning his gaze back in the direction of the bar, his long knifelike ears perked to catch stray echoes of noise. All was quiet now, which was fortunate.
Whilst the tribes of the North had resisted General Rain and her Sheg clan with some sense of unity, all that had disappeared when their hopes of victory waned. As conditions for them worsened old grudges were starting to surface. Tribes that had feuded in the north now fought their grievances anew in the streets of the city. Many blamed each other for their defeat, and gave vent to the frustrations they felt upon the hides of those who were once their rivals. The streets were quickly turning into a powder keg. A misplaced insult could touch off a riot, particularly amongst the soldiers who were still exhausted and bitter from their fresh defeat.
"Hardly surprising..." He slurred to himself, his mouth drying rapidly as the breeze blew, carrying with it scents of spices and meat from the distant markets making his stomach rumble. "The way they're so quick to turn on each other."
"Talking to yourself isn't a good sign." A voice interjected on his private musings, making him jump and doing more to sober him in an instant than mere concentration had been able to achieve. Ardal jumped and snarled to see another Northern Sergal in the far end of the alley where he had come in; taller than he, and older. Like most of the Northerners in Goldring this one went bare chested, clad only in a kilt and a leather belt slung from one shoulder that held a number of pouches and satchels. He was staring at Ardal with a wry, vaguely predatory smirk upon his pointed features, and Ardal recognising it as one of the few grey furred muzzles that hadn't been watching the bar fight.
He raised a hand to his brow and rubbed at it. This was not what he needed.
"Veln tribe, right?" He grunted in reply, studying the other Northerner's demeanour, the way he wore his fur that revealed much to a trained eye. He found himself regretting his decision to rush straight into the alley; his rapid exit had been noticed. "You were a few booths down from me. Have a taste for Nevrean beverages?"
The stranger laughed and shook his head with exaggerated movements, but Ardal knew this was no idle conversation and certainly not friendly. Sure enough, he fancied he could hear the sounds of someone- make that two someone's, creeping up the opposite end of the alley, trying to mask the sound of their movement in the malaise of ordinary city life. Like many creatures who suddenly found themselves displaced, some Northerners used to the wild and open landscape of Tatola had adapted to the urban climes well. They had picked up every trick known to street thugs within a matter of months.
"Very observant. You seemed in an awful hurry to leave." The stranger said, a certain swagger to his stride belying an air of confidence. As Ardal watched his eyes flickered to some spot at the far end of the alley. "I was curious why. You in some kind of trouble, friend? You should know it isn't safe to wander around drunk. Too many nasty characters around these days."
"If I'm not in trouble already, I shortly will be." He replied dryly. From behind there was the sound of a stifled snigger. The skin on the back of Ardal's neck seemed to be trying to crawl its way around to the front beneath the heat of encroaching eyes fixed on his jugular.
"Very observant..." The older one repeated, his grin fixed and waxen, like the rictus of a skull. As he drew nearer his fur shifted to reveal vicious pink scars criss-crossing his stomach- marks that could only have been inflicted by some sort of blade, though that wasn't what caught Ardal's attention. The older one's gaze was fixed on his hips, where Ardal's fur met the loincloth he wore. There was no bare skin there, unlike most of the newer arrivals. Nor, Ardal noted, was there upon the elder.
"Why don't you make this easy on yourself and just drop to your knees. We don't have to hurt you too much if you don't put up a-"
The blow caught the stranger's jaw, and as he reeled Ardal dashed past him into the broader street, feeling something buzz angrily through his long neck mane and impact the wall next to his head heavily. A split second later a deafening crack cut the air, making him stumble mid-stride in surprise.
"Shit! Get him!"
Ardal was running even before the shock hit; a stinging sensation like grit had been flung hard at the side of his face and neck. He burst out of the alley in a flurry of limbs and shouldered a confused looking Augudner out of his path as something dark popped above the flat-roofed ridge of the building opposite-
BANG
The wall beside him erupted fragments of plaster and paint as the bullet struck wide off its mark, almost hitting the two Northerners in pursuit and making them hesitate for a scant moment. It was probably that which saved him; a second later and they would have been at his back, but in that scarce heartbeat between the shot and their hesitation, all hell broke loose.
The busy street market exploded into activity as everyone who could ran for cover; panicked screaming and the harsher, distant shouts of Leono guards echoed and resonated in the reverberating din of the gunshot, turning the sounds into a dizzying morass that was almost a physical force in its intensity. Ardal barely saw where he was running to, had no idea of a location save anywhere away from HERE. He didn't dare look back. His feet carried him deeper into the market district in a blind panic of ducking and weaving between carts and ornately painted stalls, plastered with fish and colourful Southern Sergal scripts that he couldn't comprehend. Deftly dodging an upturned basket and a Nevrean beggar who sat slumped against a wall, cackling at the chaos so hard that her grey tinged feathers sloughed off, he did his best to lose himself amongst the throng of tan fur before another shot could be fired. No easy task. A full head neck taller than any other race, the Northern Sergal felt as conspicuous as though a target was painted upon the back of his head, expecting any moment to feel a piercing pain drilling through his skull that would carry him into oblivion.
Blundering through the crowd of confused and milling Southerners at a fish stall, he dodged sideways into a street and burst through the door of a dimly lit clock shop, vaulting the counter and hitting the reed rug behind with a whoosh of air as the breath was forced from his heaving, burning lungs. A shocked and nervous Talyxian that had evidently had the same idea almost jumped out if its fur; a single, luminous bulb of an eye peeking beneath the cover of feline-like forepaws where it too cowered in a pathetic heap as chaos reigned outside. Ardal smiled at it wryly for a few moments as the noises from outside rose into a deafening crescendo, then took a flask of water from his hip and un-stoppered it with his teeth, offering it to the creature.
It took a few heart pounding moments for the worst of the noise to die down, and a few more for the slight-framed Southerners to begin peeking from their bolt-holes and behind their stalls like long snouted mice checking that all was safe- a forest of yellow eyeshine showing from beneath shadowy curtains and from within darkened, glassless windows. Ardal risked a glance too, and seeing no signs of other Northerners nearby and clambered back to his feet, dusting himself down as he tried to steady his nerves. A damp bloodstain was spreading sluggishly down his neck where chips of plaster had struck, staining his white fur pink as he unfolded himself- queerly painless, though he knew from hard experience that the pain would come later, when the adrenaline began to ebb from his blood. Without a second glance at the confused and uncomprehending Talyxian he made for the door, bells chiming as he stepped back out into the street, doing his best to look simply another face amidst the slowly returning crowd.
That had been close. Far too close. Fur stood in a jagged wave between his shoulders as blood dripped darkly down his neck, attracting muffled, growling comments from the Southerners. None of them offered to help, or asked if he was alright- they simply glared silently as he made his way past, heating his back with accusing stares. He shrugged them off, ducking low and pushing past wordlessly, unwrapping part of his keffiyeh to hide the bloodstain. It was no secret that crime had gone up dramatically. Many of the refugees were in dire straits when they arrived, having little more than the clothes on their back and minds full of guile. Many were former warriors used to foraging off the land, and for those who had fewer scruples than most like vermin found the city a bountiful harvest of other people's possessions.
The native Southerners were growing restless, demanding solutions. And though they denied it publically, the chieftains of Leono clan had felt the ground move beneath their feet. A scant decade ago, their Northern cousins had been little more than bickering tribes living in yurts and digging up clay from which to fashion weapons. The Southern Sergals had always counted themselves safe from their larger, more violent cousins so long as Northerner fought and killed Northerner. They simply hadn't ever expected to deal with it on their own doorstep.
And now lands claimed by Leono bordered those of the emergent Sheg empire that Rain was busily hammering from the embers of the conflict, and with nothing left to oppose her was doing so with remarkable alacrity for a race considered uncivilised. From squabbling primitives she had built herself an army; one well armed and experienced after a decade of brutal war. An army that demanded an enemy...

***

The refugee soldiers also had an enemy, and it was the sun. It came with blades of thirst and lances of heatstroke, and their efforts to fight it in the lands that it ruled were fruitless. The sands offered no shelter, and no shield could protect from its withering burn. That left hiding.
The outer districts of the city, beyond the wall was where most of them lurked. Amidst the narrow, winding streets, butcheries, tanneries and shadow shrouded warehouses the grey-furred Sergals sought to fit in and carve a new life for themselves.
As Ardal walked the narrow, airless streets it was easy to see why. Shade. Beyond the walls was where the poor had traditionally dwelled, outside of their safe confines; the flat-walled structures of the slums stretching broad rather than tall to keep the sand from crowding in, built of adobe rather than stone to radiate heat without the lost technological marvels of the city proper to do that service. But this had the dual effect of casting the lower levels of the streets into a comfortable, cool darkness. It suited him well; even with shorn fur and coverings to keep the harsh glare at bay, the city was unforgivingly hot during the day. But more than that. Here he could blend in.
The Northerners had naturally gravitated towards their own kind when they arrived in the city. Traditionally there had been few; mostly representatives of some tribe or another who arranged trade in Tatola's bounty of weapons and exotic foods. Now they had crowded out all who couldn't afford to move from this particular part of the city, and the sight of grey or blue pelt was a somewhat welcome change to Ardal's eyes from endless tan and feathers. As he walked through this place there were no stares or anger; cubs chasing a ball formed of sewn leather scraps didn't try to avoid him. The voices around were familiar and soothing; the inflections of the deeper, Northern speech accented differently depending on their tribes of origin. The area was packed and run down with trade shops repurposed as housing, and additions to existing structures in the Northern tastes of building stood out glaringly even amidst Goldring's eclectic architecture. Quite, hidden spots amidst these chaotic slums were not hard to find; there had been no great plan when this place was built even before the new additions, and for the most part the city's foundations were those parts of the city that had come before it. It was to one of these he made his way.

The close call had rattled him to his core, and his sense of unease only grew the more his thoughts lingered upon it. A tight knot of tension sat heavily in the pit of his stomach, and his tail flicked violently, trying to make sense of what he had just witnessed. The way that the older Sergal had stared troubled him; there was no gauging his wealth in that stare. Ardal had no wealth to gauge. So why would thieves trouble him, a penniless drunk, especially ones well enough to do that they could afford the luxury of guns? The old weapons built using technology now lost following the old cataclysm were highly prized, and only a handful of people in the whole of the world still knew the secrets of making their ammunition. Something about the whole situation didn't add up.
Ardal didn't believe in coincidences. Far too many who did had failed to read the bigger picture and died saying 'damn'. There was something he had to check.
It was a simple abode at the end of a street, like hundreds of others- a converted basement beneath a fishery, the only signs of which from the surface was a plain, flyspecked wooden door. Nevertheless even this quaint place, rank with the stench of fish guts and rancid water weed now found itself doing double duty, so when Ardal rapped upon the door he was unsurprised when an icy blue eye appeared behind a crack in the planks.
"What kind of trouble have you got yourself in this time?" The inevitable question came, but he ignored it.
"Just let me in Sarg." He said, exasperated. "It's too hot out here."
The eye vanished after a reluctant moment, the sounds muttering accompanying clasps being unlatched before the rickety portal was finally pulled inside. Sarg glared at him down her long muzzle like a mother chiding a cub; though she was the shorter, her darker fur gave her a much more brooding presence and it never ceased to amaze him how she could cut much larger Sergals dead with a glance. It was something she had a lot of practice at. He shared the lodgings with two other families, and there were children amongst them who were wont to get into trouble. As a former nursery matriarch, the boisterous infants were frequently left in her care.
"Well you'd better get inside. Try not to bleed all over the rugs." She said in acidic tones, closing the door behind him as he quickly stepped into the blissful shade. The interior was stark and bare, despite the general clutter that came with long habitation; only a few ancient and beaten pieces of furniture could be found in any of the four rooms, but they had long made do with stuffed cushions on which to sit, in the Southern style. Snatching off his keffiyeh, he used it to wipe his sweating brow, and gave a start to feel a hand on his back.
"Go," Sarg said with her characteristic brusqueness, pushing him towards the room set aside for bathing and necessity. Her piercing gaze raked his bloody neck questioningly like the talons of some bird of prey, but he kept his expression carefully blank.
"Accident." He grunted evasively, stuffing the keffiyeh into his belt.
" Some accident." She shot back, her eyes fixed upon the guilty, oozing punctures. Though the worst of the bleeding had stopped it was starting to sting, and had drawn altogether far too much attention on the way back to his residence. Despite her hard exterior though she doted upon the young ones and he knew Sarg had come to regard him almost like one of the cubs she reared. His adjustment here had not been an easy one, and when she offered him shelter he repaid her with trust. She, perhaps alone amongst all of the other Northerners in the city knew his full story.
Though he beginning to feel that she wasn't alone in that any longer.
"Stew is on the fire." She said, shoving him roughly towards the pot-metal tub, alone in that room save for a bucket and a water pump. "Fish again." The female sighed. "Do be quick. Little Arsha has a fever and I don't want to leave him too long."
Ardal grunted and made his way into the bathroom, setting the metal tub beneath its pump and working up a sweat as the metal creaked and groaned in his fingers. The ancient pump was stiff with rust, but this kind of exertion was exactly what he needed to take his mind off the suspicions brewing in its dark recesses. Slipping into an almost meditative trance as he worked, the male shed kilt and sun-bleached harness, the cool water was a soothing balm of relief as it seeped through his fur. With methodical, familiar movements he loosened his braids, taking up a stiff-bristled brush and working it through his pelt until the skin beneath started to sting. With some care he felt around his neck and cheek, pulling free those bits of plaster and metal that met his claws dispassionately, ignoring the twinges of pain as piece by piece it came free and tapped with a metallic chime into the bottom of the bath; the water growing ever more pink as the blood flowed free once again.
When it was done he wrung out his fur as best he could and made his way to the small, curtained off alcove that was the only privacy afforded to him in the normally crowded basement. Ancient stains across the floor told that this place had once been used to hold wine, though all that remained of it now was the ghost of a smell to torment his dreams and make him crave the bar with its blessed liquor. His sleeping mat lay rolled up in one corner, and in the other a few meagre possessions; some combs, polish, a small knife and miscellaneous grooming implements... and the chest.
His hands shook as he reached out to it, flinching as the dusty, polished wood met his pads as though it were hot enough to burn. Instinctively he sought to recoil from it, but with gritted teeth he forced his thumbs to work, sliding beneath the metal catch and lifting it free with a click. A thin layer of cloth obscured what lay within; its tight weft carefully oiled to keep moisture from seeping through the contents. The angular shape within stared through its coverings at him guiltily, daringly, all at once raising in him the twin conflicting emotions of relief and hard bitterness coiling in his stomach like warring serpents at what the thing represented. Harshly he plunged his clawed fingers through the wrap, and to be sure he grabbed its hard edge and lifted it free, leaving him face to face with dark, empty eyeholes.
The helmet stared back.
In the flickering light of the candles it seemed to mock him, the hard line of the cheek guards curved slightly like the dropped jaw of a sergalic rictus. Dark oil from the preserving cloth marred its lustrous green-grey finish with splotches and waves of dark brown, the resemblance to old, congealed blood so shocking that he almost dropped it and had to bite down on his tongue to keep from crying out.
All at once old, hard memories came tearing back, memories he had sealed away with hard labour and strong drink. The thick oil seeped into the fur of his fingers, its harsh tannins stinging his skin, staining them with the same ruddy hue. It had been almost a year since he had sealed it away and vowed to overcome his past. If he had been able to afford a lock he would have had one fitted, and then thrown away the key. Even years after, Ardal was never quite sure why he went to such effort to hold onto something that pained him so; penance, perhaps. He could have quietly disposed of the chest and its accursed contents at any moment, yet every time the thought rose in his mind like a dark storm he found himself ultimately unable to go through with it.
His hands shook as he took up a clean cloth and began wiping away the excess oil, details emerging from beneath the tinted ooze like some ancient evil. In design it was standard fare of the northern armies; lightweight and angular, formed from a mould of fired fibre and clay like a thousand others of its type. His claws traced across the surface, feeling a series of indentations behind the eye slit where lengths of mesh protecting the ears ran. The very tips of these were capped with golden insignias of rank; and just below that, a red stripe framed with yellow.
The same yellow that hued the Eyes of Death. The eyes of General Rain.
The cloth grew sullied in his hands but as he lost himself in his past the old motions of polishing and cleaning, repeated so long and often that they had carved a groove into his muscle memory returning as though they had never left. He spat upon it, smearing saliva with oil, the cramp growing in his digits an old, familiar friend. Two years since he had abandoned his post in the Sheg army, fleeing into the night like a thief. One long year tallied off the count of his life, spent in a haze of vice and drunken debauchery until Sarg had literally pulled him half dead from the gutter. He had thought it all behind him; his new life was a sorry, rocky one, but it was wholesome. And now...

A small cough brought him back to reality; Sarg glaring at him around the corner of the curtain from beneath her thick, pitch black brows. She curled a lip in disdain as she stepped inside and laid her hands on her hips in a matronly manner, looking across his still-damp fur. Clothing had always been a point of contention between the two; Sarg maintained that they should be clothed at all times to better fit in with the Southerners, who regarded nudity with prudish contempt. Ardal, like most of the immigrants felt it an unnecessary burden in the heat, something compounded by a lack of any sense of modesty within his native culture.
"Still going to pretend it was an accident, captain?" She said, her eyes narrowing and fingers unfurling to show something clenched between her claws; a sliver of copper from the jacketing of a bullet. Ardal swore; in his haste he had forgotten to empty the bath.
He didn't answer at first, staring into the now clean helmet's mirror-like sheen, seeing himself hideously distorted and warped in its lustre. He set it into the shade where it's almost gaily coloured markings wouldn't shine so brightly or eye catching, drawing his thoughts away to the harangue he knew she was brewing for him. The sarcastic emphasis on her word hit him like a blow and made his muscles clench; something that was exactly her intention. Even those who owned nothing still had their pride, and she delighted in stabbing at it when she thought he was out of line.
"It has been a long time since I was a captain." He muttered bitterly, picking up the helmet again and more forcefully sending it clattering into a more distant corner where the dim flames of the candles could not dance and frolic mockingly in its reflection. "At least, it seems that way... But I know you aren't behind this attempt. If you had tipped off the bounty hunters, they'd have wanted proof of identity. That is all I have left from my days of serving her."
"You sold the rest. And then drank it." She shot back accusingly, completely irreverent of his sour mood. Tossing the fragment of bullet on the palm of her hand, she studied him for long moments; her gaze on the back of his neck as hot as an inquisitor's vice. "I remember when we met; scraping you off the bottom, breaking you out of your fever, listening to you rambling and screaming through your dreams. When you ran from her army you were hunted, but I took you all the same. Even though I knew the danger." She said slowly, her tones soft and disappointed. "You wanted to start again, you said. But you kept that thing. Like some sort of damn souvenir. Had I known I'd have made you get rid of it."
When he didn't reply to her needling with more than a grunt she started forwards, standing over him as he glared silently at the lopsided looking helm.
"...And now you think it has come back to haunt you." She said with a deceptive calmness, but a quiver in her voice betrayed building anger. "Are the children in danger?"
Ardal's days had been dark when she had found him. Sarg had been the one to hold him together through those heinous times... although to say that she held him together was perhaps wrong, he reflected. A more accurate description would be to say that she made sure he didn't choke on his own vomit, and ate something solid every now and again. She had saved him, even if he had emerged from the experience far from fit or sound of mind. Her help and confidence had come at a price however, and he had worked for her since, brought money into her house, kept the less savoury types of trouble from affecting the families under her wing at cost to his own hide. But through all of that there was something the two would never be able to share; trust.
He knew the thought of turning him in to Rain's justice had crossed her mind. With the reward placed on his head she would be able to grant her wards a chance at a normal life in their new home. And he had been her enemy once; Ardal knew little of her past before she came to Goldring, but her hatred and fear of Rain was just as strong as his own. Perhaps that was the only thing that held her back. As a former officer his desertion would met all the more severely, and he would be left to linger for some time as an example to others who questioned the Brutal General's ways.
He shook his head.
"No," Ardal said, after thinking hard for a long moment. "They followed me into an alley, I'm guessing they wanted to do... whatever it was they had planned quietly. Didn't want the guards interfering."
"And if they come for you in the night, what then?" She growled sternly, ignoring him. "I have a soft heart for waifs and strays, Ardal. But if hosting you is putting the cubs in danger I must know of it."
"They won't come." He repeated, wiping the oil from his hands onto the sullied cloth and throwing it aside. "They probably don't know I'm here, and they'd never get out of the city if they made such an open move. They'll wait until they can come upon me alone, or-"
"When you're drunk again." She said scathingly.
"...Yes." He admitted with candour.
She threw him a look of contempt. Ardal had never been a natural fighter; what skills he had with a spear and lance were hard won out of practice. He was all too familiar with the kinds of wounds a blade could inflict, but never had he held a knife that could flay so fast or thoroughly as one of Sarg's stares.
"...Fine, I'll stay off the juice for a while. Happy?" He snapped, knowing full well that she could keep it up all day.
"Good. You'll live longer," She said, her hard expression fading to one of smugness. "Besides having more money to pay the rent you owe me. When you're done feeling sorry for yourself I would suggest informing the guards. They're on the lookout for witnesses, just so you know."
With that she left, the threadbare curtain falling back into place with nary a flicker, leaving him alone with his thoughts and demons once again.
Ardal sat in silence for a long moment, switching his tail in agitation. The guards? They were the last people he could talk to about this. For all of her strengths, Sarg had never developed the keen sense of paranoia that kept someone like Ardal alive. Any hint of his past and he would be lucky not to end up staked to the walls. The Leono clan feared Sheg spies, for all knew that Rain would set her sights on Goldring once she had consolidated her gains in Tatola. Leono hadn't fought a major war in decades, and it had been a century or more since the city had needed to defend itself against anything but packs of brigands. They were a great power in the region, but a naked one, unprepared for the brutality that was brewing on the ice-locked plains.
"No," he reflected privately, turning his gaze towards the abandoned helm that now looked forlorn and spattered with dust in a shadowy corner. "I have been hunted before. I need to know my hunters..."
The old one. His thoughts turned back to the alley, recalling the instant before he had made a break for it. The new arrivals had bald patches from their armour, but Ardal's had long since grown in. The old one evidently had not worn any for some time either. That could mean either he was an earlier deserter like Ardal... Or more likely that he and his group needed to move quickly and unencumbered.
Any lingering doubts that he had were gone in that instant. Ardal had always known he was a hunted man; even the lowliest private could not escape the gaze of the yellow-eyed banner so easily, much less an officer. He had been careful. Had altered his appearance as much as he could, avoided drawing attention to himself and for a year had been unmolested by unsavoury mercenaries wanting to cash in on his pelt.
How then, had these ones recognised him?
"They must have been following me, waiting for their chance." He realised, whispering aloud to himself as his fingers traced the scabbed marks upon his neck. He hadn't gotten a good look at the other three, but the scarred Northerner's face he recognised clearly from the bar. They knew his routine, where to find him that meant they probably knew where he lived. "Sarg was right." He said, swearing. "Someone must have tipped them off..."
Ardal stood, a moment of clarity highlighting his next course. No new life he created would ever be safe, no sanctuary impregnable so long as he was hunted. For two years he had lived each day in fear, wondering if the next assassin would be the one to get lucky, using liquor as a crutch to keep himself moving from day to day when even anger had not been enough. When he had thought himself divorced of the past it just numbed the lingering sting of what was left behind. Southern Sergals had a saying that if one wanted to kill a weed, the roots had to go first. The true root of the problem was untouchable, but at least he could prune the ones that he could reach...

Scooping his helmet from the floor, he packed it away in its oilcloth sheath and shut the box lid with a snap. What little possessions he had were easy enough to pack away; a simple satchel was enough to hold most of them, leaving only the chest as a true burden to carry. He would have to get rid of it. Ardal would need both of his hands free for the plan that was brewing in his brain, but for the time being it might be able to serve some small amount of good.
With everything he owned, he stepped out into the living area where a fire crackled happily in a central floor pit and the familiar, bizarrely homely stench of fish pervaded. Sarg stood crouched over a blue furred cub who lay curled into a heap upon her reed sleeping mat, whimpering softly as the older matriarch cooed and cajoled the youngster into taking his medicine. She looked up to spare Ardal a glance as he passed, her ears perking with curiosity.
"Off drinking again so soon?" she asked with a hint of bemusement, a scowl on her face until she saw the box beneath his arm. Then her expression hardened. Ardal flinched when he saw a brief expression of panic fleetingly flash across her features. He had only ever seen its like once before, when one of the cubs had gotten trapped beneath a stack of fallen crates.
"I have a few things to take care of. " He replied quietly, refusing to meet her questioning glance. Ardal swallowed hard, wondering if she knew what was in his mind, guilt thickening his tongue and making his words halting and awkward. "I might be gone for a couple of days, so don't worry if I'm not home for a while..."
"I... see..." Sarg said emotionlessly, her sharp tongue failing her for once. She stood, reaching up to lay a hand on his shoulder, her eyes holding a knowing expression that struck to his core harder than any acid remark or harangue ever had. Her fingers squeezed into his hide before her mask returned once again, as implacable as ever.
"Stay safe." She said simply and turned him towards the door.

Description
***

Glass chinked and liquid sloshed as Ardal drained the glass dry, sighing softly as redolent liquor burned its way down his throat. For a few precious moments it seemed that the world was a better place whilst his tongue tingled and head spun pleasantly, the boundaries of his awareness extending no further than the drunken haze in which he retreated away from the many and richly varied problems that afflicted his life. And then he opened his eyes.
The pure and blinding light of the desert sun shone bright even inside the bar, scalding rays of it piercing through slatted windows of the tavern and boring deep into his brain with its painful, blinding sting. Raising a hand to shade his vision, he lamented bitterly the ill fated adventures that had brought him to the sprawling forest of pale orange stone that was the city of Goldring. Not that there was anywhere else to go. The wilder lands of Vilous were dangerous at the best of times, as numerous and varied as their inhabitants, and whilst each had carved out their own corners from the chaos only Goldring truly catered to them all. Light-footed feathered Nevreans found work amidst the slow and steady Augudner; the Southern Sergals of Clan Leono who had claimed the city as their own since time immemorial welcomed them with open arms, strangers from far lands who brought wealth and vibrancy to the heart of the desert. And the larger, darker Northern Sergals...

...Were fighting again, he heard, following the direction of the tan-furred bartender's gaze with a sneer of disdain curling his lips. Amidst a sparkling sea of broken glass and dropped coins a pair of Northerners wrestled and snarled savagely, drawing long stripes of red over each other's shoulders with their talons in a flurry of teeth, claws and flying tufts of thick, white fur. Furniture clattered and broke as others leapt to their feet and quickly joined in the fray, shouting encouragement and taking bets. The rest of the bar's patrons kept their distance; they were starting to get used to these distressingly frequent outbursts, he thought. Ardal didn't need a second glance to sense the disgust of Southerner and Nevrean alike, who thought their ilk little more than uncivilised barbarians. Nor the nature of the combatants on the floor, one of whom by now had his partner in a headlock and was smashing her angular snout repeatedly into a table. Many of them would sport bald patches about the hips where close-fitting armour had worn away parts of their coat. They'd be distressingly thin. And they'd be desperate. He knew because he was one of them, and considered himself lucky for it. There were plenty of bones mouldering beneath northern snows that weren't so fortunate.
He flicked the bartender a few coins and hurriedly stepped over the squabbling pair into the wide, airy city streets eager to leave behind the stifling interior of the bar before more trouble arrived. It always did. Though people smiled and greeted each other in the as warmly as ever, tensions were brewing beneath the polite facade. The Northern Sergals weren't welcome. They had trickled into the city for nearly a decade, but in the last few months that trickle had become a torrent. Rumours of the war that had bloodied the snows of the Northern homeland, distant Tatola, for a full decade were filtering through- rumours that the war had ended. Now that the ravaged remnants of the defeated armies had started to arrive in a search for sanctuary it wasn't just gossip anymore. The citizens of Goldring found it hard to ignore the something when it turned up on their doorstep. People were angry, and scared. The Northerners who were the bringers of this ill news were a convenient target to accuse as the cause of this shadow cast so suddenly across the desert dunes.
More and more often scenes just like the one he had witnessed were repeating themselves in the outer rings of the city as refugees flocked to the desert in droves. The sun burned their fair skin and stung their eyes, but each who made the perilous trek of them knew that something worse lurked in their snowy homelands. Tales of terror were on everyone's lips. He could feel it in the air, see it painted onto the sandstone walls in the shape of graffiti and lurid, yellow eyes that seemed to stalk you with their lidless glare. It had always been said by the superstitious that Death had yellow eyes. General Rain, who three months ago had succeeded in stamping out the last resistance on her claim to Tatola had yellow eyes.
Ardal had his own reasons for wanting to avoid their gaze.
He squinted as his eyes adjusted to the unfettered brightness of the cloudless sky, then took himself off at a brisk walk to leave the sounds of muffled destruction in his wake as the rattle of armour and indistinct, higher pitched Southern voices beginning to rise above the din, followed swiftly by pained howls and thwacks as the clubs of the guards went to eager work. True to its name, the districts of Goldring were laid out in a series of concentric circles, each separated by walls; each street necessarily curving slightly when not leading directly to the centre like the spokes of a wheel. Of course, this had the effect of hiding someone from sight if they moved fast enough...
Slipping into a shaded side-street between two squat shops, he let himself pause briefly to steady his legs. Wobbling from the drunken buzzing in his head, he ran a long-fingered hand over his brow and pulled the muslin keffiyeh he wore lower. For a few long moments all he could hear was his own breath and heart pounding loud in his ears, the blistering heat of the day working its way beneath his fur like a tingling itch. Turning his gaze back in the direction of the bar, his long knifelike ears perked to catch stray echoes of noise. All was quiet now, which was fortunate.
Whilst the tribes of the North had resisted General Rain and her Sheg clan with some sense of unity, all that had disappeared when their hopes of victory waned. As conditions for them worsened old grudges were starting to surface. Tribes that had feuded in the north now fought their grievances anew in the streets of the city. Many blamed each other for their defeat, and gave vent to the frustrations they felt upon the hides of those who were once their rivals. The streets were quickly turning into a powder keg. A misplaced insult could touch off a riot, particularly amongst the soldiers who were still exhausted and bitter from their fresh defeat.
"Hardly surprising..." He slurred to himself, his mouth drying rapidly as the breeze blew, carrying with it scents of spices and meat from the distant markets making his stomach rumble. "The way they're so quick to turn on each other."
"Talking to yourself isn't a good sign." A voice interjected on his private musings, making him jump and doing more to sober him in an instant than mere concentration had been able to achieve. Ardal jumped and snarled to see another Northern Sergal in the far end of the alley where he had come in; taller than he, and older. Like most of the Northerners in Goldring this one went bare chested, clad only in a kilt and a leather belt slung from one shoulder that held a number of pouches and satchels. He was staring at Ardal with a wry, vaguely predatory smirk upon his pointed features, and Ardal recognising it as one of the few grey furred muzzles that hadn't been watching the bar fight.
He raised a hand to his brow and rubbed at it. This was not what he needed.
"Veln tribe, right?" He grunted in reply, studying the other Northerner's demeanour, the way he wore his fur that revealed much to a trained eye. He found himself regretting his decision to rush straight into the alley; his rapid exit had been noticed. "You were a few booths down from me. Have a taste for Nevrean beverages?"
The stranger laughed and shook his head with exaggerated movements, but Ardal knew this was no idle conversation and certainly not friendly. Sure enough, he fancied he could hear the sounds of someone- make that two someone's, creeping up the opposite end of the alley, trying to mask the sound of their movement in the malaise of ordinary city life. Like many creatures who suddenly found themselves displaced, some Northerners used to the wild and open landscape of Tatola had adapted to the urban climes well. They had picked up every trick known to street thugs within a matter of months.
"Very observant. You seemed in an awful hurry to leave." The stranger said, a certain swagger to his stride belying an air of confidence. As Ardal watched his eyes flickered to some spot at the far end of the alley. "I was curious why. You in some kind of trouble, friend? You should know it isn't safe to wander around drunk. Too many nasty characters around these days."
"If I'm not in trouble already, I shortly will be." He replied dryly. From behind there was the sound of a stifled snigger. The skin on the back of Ardal's neck seemed to be trying to crawl its way around to the front beneath the heat of encroaching eyes fixed on his jugular.
"Very observant..." The older one repeated, his grin fixed and waxen, like the rictus of a skull. As he drew nearer his fur shifted to reveal vicious pink scars criss-crossing his stomach- marks that could only have been inflicted by some sort of blade, though that wasn't what caught Ardal's attention. The older one's gaze was fixed on his hips, where Ardal's fur met the loincloth he wore. There was no bare skin there, unlike most of the newer arrivals. Nor, Ardal noted, was there upon the elder.
"Why don't you make this easy on yourself and just drop to your knees. We don't have to hurt you too much if you don't put up a-"
The blow caught the stranger's jaw, and as he reeled Ardal dashed past him into the broader street, feeling something buzz angrily through his long neck mane and impact the wall next to his head heavily. A split second later a deafening crack cut the air, making him stumble mid-stride in surprise.
"Shit! Get him!"
Ardal was running even before the shock hit; a stinging sensation like grit had been flung hard at the side of his face and neck. He burst out of the alley in a flurry of limbs and shouldered a confused looking Augudner out of his path as something dark popped above the flat-roofed ridge of the building opposite-
BANG
The wall beside him erupted fragments of plaster and paint as the bullet struck wide off its mark, almost hitting the two Northerners in pursuit and making them hesitate for a scant moment. It was probably that which saved him; a second later and they would have been at his back, but in that scarce heartbeat between the shot and their hesitation, all hell broke loose.
The busy street market exploded into activity as everyone who could ran for cover; panicked screaming and the harsher, distant shouts of Leono guards echoed and resonated in the reverberating din of the gunshot, turning the sounds into a dizzying morass that was almost a physical force in its intensity. Ardal barely saw where he was running to, had no idea of a location save anywhere away from HERE. He didn't dare look back. His feet carried him deeper into the market district in a blind panic of ducking and weaving between carts and ornately painted stalls, plastered with fish and colourful Southern Sergal scripts that he couldn't comprehend. Deftly dodging an upturned basket and a Nevrean beggar who sat slumped against a wall, cackling at the chaos so hard that her grey tinged feathers sloughed off, he did his best to lose himself amongst the throng of tan fur before another shot could be fired. No easy task. A full head neck taller than any other race, the Northern Sergal felt as conspicuous as though a target was painted upon the back of his head, expecting any moment to feel a piercing pain drilling through his skull that would carry him into oblivion.
Blundering through the crowd of confused and milling Southerners at a fish stall, he dodged sideways into a street and burst through the door of a dimly lit clock shop, vaulting the counter and hitting the reed rug behind with a whoosh of air as the breath was forced from his heaving, burning lungs. A shocked and nervous Talyxian that had evidently had the same idea almost jumped out if its fur; a single, luminous bulb of an eye peeking beneath the cover of feline-like forepaws where it too cowered in a pathetic heap as chaos reigned outside. Ardal smiled at it wryly for a few moments as the noises from outside rose into a deafening crescendo, then took a flask of water from his hip and un-stoppered it with his teeth, offering it to the creature.
It took a few heart pounding moments for the worst of the noise to die down, and a few more for the slight-framed Southerners to begin peeking from their bolt-holes and behind their stalls like long snouted mice checking that all was safe- a forest of yellow eyeshine showing from beneath shadowy curtains and from within darkened, glassless windows. Ardal risked a glance too, and seeing no signs of other Northerners nearby and clambered back to his feet, dusting himself down as he tried to steady his nerves. A damp bloodstain was spreading sluggishly down his neck where chips of plaster had struck, staining his white fur pink as he unfolded himself- queerly painless, though he knew from hard experience that the pain would come later, when the adrenaline began to ebb from his blood. Without a second glance at the confused and uncomprehending Talyxian he made for the door, bells chiming as he stepped back out into the street, doing his best to look simply another face amidst the slowly returning crowd.
That had been close. Far too close. Fur stood in a jagged wave between his shoulders as blood dripped darkly down his neck, attracting muffled, growling comments from the Southerners. None of them offered to help, or asked if he was alright- they simply glared silently as he made his way past, heating his back with accusing stares. He shrugged them off, ducking low and pushing past wordlessly, unwrapping part of his keffiyeh to hide the bloodstain. It was no secret that crime had gone up dramatically. Many of the refugees were in dire straits when they arrived, having little more than the clothes on their back and minds full of guile. Many were former warriors used to foraging off the land, and for those who had fewer scruples than most like vermin found the city a bountiful harvest of other people's possessions.
The native Southerners were growing restless, demanding solutions. And though they denied it publically, the chieftains of Leono clan had felt the ground move beneath their feet. A scant decade ago, their Northern cousins had been little more than bickering tribes living in yurts and digging up clay from which to fashion weapons. The Southern Sergals had always counted themselves safe from their larger, more violent cousins so long as Northerner fought and killed Northerner. They simply hadn't ever expected to deal with it on their own doorstep.
And now lands claimed by Leono bordered those of the emergent Sheg empire that Rain was busily hammering from the embers of the conflict, and with nothing left to oppose her was doing so with remarkable alacrity for a race considered uncivilised. From squabbling primitives she had built herself an army; one well armed and experienced after a decade of brutal war. An army that demanded an enemy...

***

The refugee soldiers also had an enemy, and it was the sun. It came with blades of thirst and lances of heatstroke, and their efforts to fight it in the lands that it ruled were fruitless. The sands offered no shelter, and no shield could protect from its withering burn. That left hiding.
The outer districts of the city, beyond the wall was where most of them lurked. Amidst the narrow, winding streets, butcheries, tanneries and shadow shrouded warehouses the grey-furred Sergals sought to fit in and carve a new life for themselves.
As Ardal walked the narrow, airless streets it was easy to see why. Shade. Beyond the walls was where the poor had traditionally dwelled, outside of their safe confines; the flat-walled structures of the slums stretching broad rather than tall to keep the sand from crowding in, built of adobe rather than stone to radiate heat without the lost technological marvels of the city proper to do that service. But this had the dual effect of casting the lower levels of the streets into a comfortable, cool darkness. It suited him well; even with shorn fur and coverings to keep the harsh glare at bay, the city was unforgivingly hot during the day. But more than that. Here he could blend in.
The Northerners had naturally gravitated towards their own kind when they arrived in the city. Traditionally there had been few; mostly representatives of some tribe or another who arranged trade in Tatola's bounty of weapons and exotic foods. Now they had crowded out all who couldn't afford to move from this particular part of the city, and the sight of grey or blue pelt was a somewhat welcome change to Ardal's eyes from endless tan and feathers. As he walked through this place there were no stares or anger; cubs chasing a ball formed of sewn leather scraps didn't try to avoid him. The voices around were familiar and soothing; the inflections of the deeper, Northern speech accented differently depending on their tribes of origin. The area was packed and run down with trade shops repurposed as housing, and additions to existing structures in the Northern tastes of building stood out glaringly even amidst Goldring's eclectic architecture. Quite, hidden spots amidst these chaotic slums were not hard to find; there had been no great plan when this place was built even before the new additions, and for the most part the city's foundations were those parts of the city that had come before it. It was to one of these he made his way.

The close call had rattled him to his core, and his sense of unease only grew the more his thoughts lingered upon it. A tight knot of tension sat heavily in the pit of his stomach, and his tail flicked violently, trying to make sense of what he had just witnessed. The way that the older Sergal had stared troubled him; there was no gauging his wealth in that stare. Ardal had no wealth to gauge. So why would thieves trouble him, a penniless drunk, especially ones well enough to do that they could afford the luxury of guns? The old weapons built using technology now lost following the old cataclysm were highly prized, and only a handful of people in the whole of the world still knew the secrets of making their ammunition. Something about the whole situation didn't add up.
Ardal didn't believe in coincidences. Far too many who did had failed to read the bigger picture and died saying 'damn'. There was something he had to check.
It was a simple abode at the end of a street, like hundreds of others- a converted basement beneath a fishery, the only signs of which from the surface was a plain, flyspecked wooden door. Nevertheless even this quaint place, rank with the stench of fish guts and rancid water weed now found itself doing double duty, so when Ardal rapped upon the door he was unsurprised when an icy blue eye appeared behind a crack in the planks.
"What kind of trouble have you got yourself in this time?" The inevitable question came, but he ignored it.
"Just let me in Sarg." He said, exasperated. "It's too hot out here."
The eye vanished after a reluctant moment, the sounds muttering accompanying clasps being unlatched before the rickety portal was finally pulled inside. Sarg glared at him down her long muzzle like a mother chiding a cub; though she was the shorter, her darker fur gave her a much more brooding presence and it never ceased to amaze him how she could cut much larger Sergals dead with a glance. It was something she had a lot of practice at. He shared the lodgings with two other families, and there were children amongst them who were wont to get into trouble. As a former nursery matriarch, the boisterous infants were frequently left in her care.
"Well you'd better get inside. Try not to bleed all over the rugs." She said in acidic tones, closing the door behind him as he quickly stepped into the blissful shade. The interior was stark and bare, despite the general clutter that came with long habitation; only a few ancient and beaten pieces of furniture could be found in any of the four rooms, but they had long made do with stuffed cushions on which to sit, in the Southern style. Snatching off his keffiyeh, he used it to wipe his sweating brow, and gave a start to feel a hand on his back.
"Go," Sarg said with her characteristic brusqueness, pushing him towards the room set aside for bathing and necessity. Her piercing gaze raked his bloody neck questioningly like the talons of some bird of prey, but he kept his expression carefully blank.
"Accident." He grunted evasively, stuffing the keffiyeh into his belt.
" Some accident." She shot back, her eyes fixed upon the guilty, oozing punctures. Though the worst of the bleeding had stopped it was starting to sting, and had drawn altogether far too much attention on the way back to his residence. Despite her hard exterior though she doted upon the young ones and he knew Sarg had come to regard him almost like one of the cubs she reared. His adjustment here had not been an easy one, and when she offered him shelter he repaid her with trust. She, perhaps alone amongst all of the other Northerners in the city knew his full story.
Though he beginning to feel that she wasn't alone in that any longer.
"Stew is on the fire." She said, shoving him roughly towards the pot-metal tub, alone in that room save for a bucket and a water pump. "Fish again." The female sighed. "Do be quick. Little Arsha has a fever and I don't want to leave him too long."
Ardal grunted and made his way into the bathroom, setting the metal tub beneath its pump and working up a sweat as the metal creaked and groaned in his fingers. The ancient pump was stiff with rust, but this kind of exertion was exactly what he needed to take his mind off the suspicions brewing in its dark recesses. Slipping into an almost meditative trance as he worked, the male shed kilt and sun-bleached harness, the cool water was a soothing balm of relief as it seeped through his fur. With methodical, familiar movements he loosened his braids, taking up a stiff-bristled brush and working it through his pelt until the skin beneath started to sting. With some care he felt around his neck and cheek, pulling free those bits of plaster and metal that met his claws dispassionately, ignoring the twinges of pain as piece by piece it came free and tapped with a metallic chime into the bottom of the bath; the water growing ever more pink as the blood flowed free once again.
When it was done he wrung out his fur as best he could and made his way to the small, curtained off alcove that was the only privacy afforded to him in the normally crowded basement. Ancient stains across the floor told that this place had once been used to hold wine, though all that remained of it now was the ghost of a smell to torment his dreams and make him crave the bar with its blessed liquor. His sleeping mat lay rolled up in one corner, and in the other a few meagre possessions; some combs, polish, a small knife and miscellaneous grooming implements... and the chest.
His hands shook as he reached out to it, flinching as the dusty, polished wood met his pads as though it were hot enough to burn. Instinctively he sought to recoil from it, but with gritted teeth he forced his thumbs to work, sliding beneath the metal catch and lifting it free with a click. A thin layer of cloth obscured what lay within; its tight weft carefully oiled to keep moisture from seeping through the contents. The angular shape within stared through its coverings at him guiltily, daringly, all at once raising in him the twin conflicting emotions of relief and hard bitterness coiling in his stomach like warring serpents at what the thing represented. Harshly he plunged his clawed fingers through the wrap, and to be sure he grabbed its hard edge and lifted it free, leaving him face to face with dark, empty eyeholes.
The helmet stared back.
In the flickering light of the candles it seemed to mock him, the hard line of the cheek guards curved slightly like the dropped jaw of a sergalic rictus. Dark oil from the preserving cloth marred its lustrous green-grey finish with splotches and waves of dark brown, the resemblance to old, congealed blood so shocking that he almost dropped it and had to bite down on his tongue to keep from crying out.
All at once old, hard memories came tearing back, memories he had sealed away with hard labour and strong drink. The thick oil seeped into the fur of his fingers, its harsh tannins stinging his skin, staining them with the same ruddy hue. It had been almost a year since he had sealed it away and vowed to overcome his past. If he had been able to afford a lock he would have had one fitted, and then thrown away the key. Even years after, Ardal was never quite sure why he went to such effort to hold onto something that pained him so; penance, perhaps. He could have quietly disposed of the chest and its accursed contents at any moment, yet every time the thought rose in his mind like a dark storm he found himself ultimately unable to go through with it.
His hands shook as he took up a clean cloth and began wiping away the excess oil, details emerging from beneath the tinted ooze like some ancient evil. In design it was standard fare of the northern armies; lightweight and angular, formed from a mould of fired fibre and clay like a thousand others of its type. His claws traced across the surface, feeling a series of indentations behind the eye slit where lengths of mesh protecting the ears ran. The very tips of these were capped with golden insignias of rank; and just below that, a red stripe framed with yellow.
The same yellow that hued the Eyes of Death. The eyes of General Rain.
The cloth grew sullied in his hands but as he lost himself in his past the old motions of polishing and cleaning, repeated so long and often that they had carved a groove into his muscle memory returning as though they had never left. He spat upon it, smearing saliva with oil, the cramp growing in his digits an old, familiar friend. Two years since he had abandoned his post in the Sheg army, fleeing into the night like a thief. One long year tallied off the count of his life, spent in a haze of vice and drunken debauchery until Sarg had literally pulled him half dead from the gutter. He had thought it all behind him; his new life was a sorry, rocky one, but it was wholesome. And now...

A small cough brought him back to reality; Sarg glaring at him around the corner of the curtain from beneath her thick, pitch black brows. She curled a lip in disdain as she stepped inside and laid her hands on her hips in a matronly manner, looking across his still-damp fur. Clothing had always been a point of contention between the two; Sarg maintained that they should be clothed at all times to better fit in with the Southerners, who regarded nudity with prudish contempt. Ardal, like most of the immigrants felt it an unnecessary burden in the heat, something compounded by a lack of any sense of modesty within his native culture.
"Still going to pretend it was an accident, captain?" She said, her eyes narrowing and fingers unfurling to show something clenched between her claws; a sliver of copper from the jacketing of a bullet. Ardal swore; in his haste he had forgotten to empty the bath.
He didn't answer at first, staring into the now clean helmet's mirror-like sheen, seeing himself hideously distorted and warped in its lustre. He set it into the shade where it's almost gaily coloured markings wouldn't shine so brightly or eye catching, drawing his thoughts away to the harangue he knew she was brewing for him. The sarcastic emphasis on her word hit him like a blow and made his muscles clench; something that was exactly her intention. Even those who owned nothing still had their pride, and she delighted in stabbing at it when she thought he was out of line.
"It has been a long time since I was a captain." He muttered bitterly, picking up the helmet again and more forcefully sending it clattering into a more distant corner where the dim flames of the candles could not dance and frolic mockingly in its reflection. "At least, it seems that way... But I know you aren't behind this attempt. If you had tipped off the bounty hunters, they'd have wanted proof of identity. That is all I have left from my days of serving her."
"You sold the rest. And then drank it." She shot back accusingly, completely irreverent of his sour mood. Tossing the fragment of bullet on the palm of her hand, she studied him for long moments; her gaze on the back of his neck as hot as an inquisitor's vice. "I remember when we met; scraping you off the bottom, breaking you out of your fever, listening to you rambling and screaming through your dreams. When you ran from her army you were hunted, but I took you all the same. Even though I knew the danger." She said slowly, her tones soft and disappointed. "You wanted to start again, you said. But you kept that thing. Like some sort of damn souvenir. Had I known I'd have made you get rid of it."
When he didn't reply to her needling with more than a grunt she started forwards, standing over him as he glared silently at the lopsided looking helm.
"...And now you think it has come back to haunt you." She said with a deceptive calmness, but a quiver in her voice betrayed building anger. "Are the children in danger?"
Ardal's days had been dark when she had found him. Sarg had been the one to hold him together through those heinous times... although to say that she held him together was perhaps wrong, he reflected. A more accurate description would be to say that she made sure he didn't choke on his own vomit, and ate something solid every now and again. She had saved him, even if he had emerged from the experience far from fit or sound of mind. Her help and confidence had come at a price however, and he had worked for her since, brought money into her house, kept the less savoury types of trouble from affecting the families under her wing at cost to his own hide. But through all of that there was something the two would never be able to share; trust.
He knew the thought of turning him in to Rain's justice had crossed her mind. With the reward placed on his head she would be able to grant her wards a chance at a normal life in their new home. And he had been her enemy once; Ardal knew little of her past before she came to Goldring, but her hatred and fear of Rain was just as strong as his own. Perhaps that was the only thing that held her back. As a former officer his desertion would met all the more severely, and he would be left to linger for some time as an example to others who questioned the Brutal General's ways.
He shook his head.
"No," Ardal said, after thinking hard for a long moment. "They followed me into an alley, I'm guessing they wanted to do... whatever it was they had planned quietly. Didn't want the guards interfering."
"And if they come for you in the night, what then?" She growled sternly, ignoring him. "I have a soft heart for waifs and strays, Ardal. But if hosting you is putting the cubs in danger I must know of it."
"They won't come." He repeated, wiping the oil from his hands onto the sullied cloth and throwing it aside. "They probably don't know I'm here, and they'd never get out of the city if they made such an open move. They'll wait until they can come upon me alone, or-"
"When you're drunk again." She said scathingly.
"...Yes." He admitted with candour.
She threw him a look of contempt. Ardal had never been a natural fighter; what skills he had with a spear and lance were hard won out of practice. He was all too familiar with the kinds of wounds a blade could inflict, but never had he held a knife that could flay so fast or thoroughly as one of Sarg's stares.
"...Fine, I'll stay off the juice for a while. Happy?" He snapped, knowing full well that she could keep it up all day.
"Good. You'll live longer," She said, her hard expression fading to one of smugness. "Besides having more money to pay the rent you owe me. When you're done feeling sorry for yourself I would suggest informing the guards. They're on the lookout for witnesses, just so you know."
With that she left, the threadbare curtain falling back into place with nary a flicker, leaving him alone with his thoughts and demons once again.
Ardal sat in silence for a long moment, switching his tail in agitation. The guards? They were the last people he could talk to about this. For all of her strengths, Sarg had never developed the keen sense of paranoia that kept someone like Ardal alive. Any hint of his past and he would be lucky not to end up staked to the walls. The Leono clan feared Sheg spies, for all knew that Rain would set her sights on Goldring once she had consolidated her gains in Tatola. Leono hadn't fought a major war in decades, and it had been a century or more since the city had needed to defend itself against anything but packs of brigands. They were a great power in the region, but a naked one, unprepared for the brutality that was brewing on the ice-locked plains.
"No," he reflected privately, turning his gaze towards the abandoned helm that now looked forlorn and spattered with dust in a shadowy corner. "I have been hunted before. I need to know my hunters..."
The old one. His thoughts turned back to the alley, recalling the instant before he had made a break for it. The new arrivals had bald patches from their armour, but Ardal's had long since grown in. The old one evidently had not worn any for some time either. That could mean either he was an earlier deserter like Ardal... Or more likely that he and his group needed to move quickly and unencumbered.
Any lingering doubts that he had were gone in that instant. Ardal had always known he was a hunted man; even the lowliest private could not escape the gaze of the yellow-eyed banner so easily, much less an officer. He had been careful. Had altered his appearance as much as he could, avoided drawing attention to himself and for a year had been unmolested by unsavoury mercenaries wanting to cash in on his pelt.
How then, had these ones recognised him?
"They must have been following me, waiting for their chance." He realised, whispering aloud to himself as his fingers traced the scabbed marks upon his neck. He hadn't gotten a good look at the other three, but the scarred Northerner's face he recognised clearly from the bar. They knew his routine, where to find him that meant they probably knew where he lived. "Sarg was right." He said, swearing. "Someone must have tipped them off..."
Ardal stood, a moment of clarity highlighting his next course. No new life he created would ever be safe, no sanctuary impregnable so long as he was hunted. For two years he had lived each day in fear, wondering if the next assassin would be the one to get lucky, using liquor as a crutch to keep himself moving from day to day when even anger had not been enough. When he had thought himself divorced of the past it just numbed the lingering sting of what was left behind. Southern Sergals had a saying that if one wanted to kill a weed, the roots had to go first. The true root of the problem was untouchable, but at least he could prune the ones that he could reach...

Scooping his helmet from the floor, he packed it away in its oilcloth sheath and shut the box lid with a snap. What little possessions he had were easy enough to pack away; a simple satchel was enough to hold most of them, leaving only the chest as a true burden to carry. He would have to get rid of it. Ardal would need both of his hands free for the plan that was brewing in his brain, but for the time being it might be able to serve some small amount of good.
With everything he owned, he stepped out into the living area where a fire crackled happily in a central floor pit and the familiar, bizarrely homely stench of fish pervaded. Sarg stood crouched over a blue furred cub who lay curled into a heap upon her reed sleeping mat, whimpering softly as the older matriarch cooed and cajoled the youngster into taking his medicine. She looked up to spare Ardal a glance as he passed, her ears perking with curiosity.
"Off drinking again so soon?" she asked with a hint of bemusement, a scowl on her face until she saw the box beneath his arm. Then her expression hardened. Ardal flinched when he saw a brief expression of panic fleetingly flash across her features. He had only ever seen its like once before, when one of the cubs had gotten trapped beneath a stack of fallen crates.
"I have a few things to take care of. " He replied quietly, refusing to meet her questioning glance. Ardal swallowed hard, wondering if she knew what was in his mind, guilt thickening his tongue and making his words halting and awkward. "I might be gone for a couple of days, so don't worry if I'm not home for a while..."
"I... see..." Sarg said emotionlessly, her sharp tongue failing her for once. She stood, reaching up to lay a hand on his shoulder, her eyes holding a knowing expression that struck to his core harder than any acid remark or harangue ever had. Her fingers squeezed into his hide before her mask returned once again, as implacable as ever.
"Stay safe." She said simply and turned him towards the door.