CHAPTER 81: SPY PAGES

The silence after the blow was deafening.

The spy’s body crumpled like a sheet of paper, his back slamming onto the stones. A small red gash, the point of impact, wept blood that spilled around him.

No one spoke for several seconds.

Charon turned to see everyone staring at him with wide eyes, apart from Emerius, who stepped beside the body to check for a pulse. He sighed with relief when he found one.

"You should be careful with head wounds. Too often, they can cause an unwanted fatality."

Charon shrugged.

"We needed him unconscious. Now he is unconscious. You guys can do whatever you need with him."

Liam broke the silence with a low whistle, his battle axe hanging dejectedly in his hands.

"Since when could you summon all those bones? I ain’t seen that many skeletons since we scouted the crypts."

Charon flashed a mysterious grin.

"A magician never reveals his tricks, especially the good ones!"

Darius’s brow furrowed, his gaze passing from the spy to Charon’s smirking face.

"That is some trick. I counted twelve skeletons; most magi at your rank can summon one or two. I will assume it was recently acquired, we could have used the help when fighting the ratlings."

He joined Emerius around the body. One of the eyes had begun to swell shut, and a line of drool dripped from his mouth, mixing with the blood on the ground.

"Now that he is incapacitated, I will need to alert the authorities so we can transport him. Although they will give us the opportunity to interrogate him, they will want to watch so nothing is missed."

Liam rolled his eyes.

"They just want to make sure we don’t kill him. Bunch of prissies. A spy like this deserves nothing but the axe."

Darius gave him a flat look before turning to Emerius.

"Make sure no one kills him while I am gone. The last thing we need is to miss out on what he knows."

Emerius gave him his word that he would, the tall swordsman offering his thanks before departing down the way he came.

Left alone, Liam had more time to grill Charon on his summons.

"So how’d ya get them? Not a lot of corpses that size ’round here, especially not with that kind of gear."

Sighing, Charon clicked his tongue, not wanting to divulge any of his personal secrets to the loud-mouthed brute.

"Just something I came across during my travels. It wasn’t easy, I can tell you that much, but I’d say it was worth it."

The massive man laughed aloud, slapping Charon on the back and sending him stumbling forward.

’Gods, does this man have any respect for personal space?’

"Worth it? Those things could be an army group on their own! If they are magical summons, they must be immune to mundane attacks. If I came across them on the field of battle, I’d remember it for the rest of my days!"

His energy was equally inspiring and tiring, especially after such a brisk run.

’I thought his stamina regenerated only when he killed something.’

Hoping to stall further questions about his element, Charon walked over to join Emerius, who was currently rifling through the spy’s robe. He frowned as he found something, tugging it free with a little effort.

It was a small stack of papers, fresh ink covering their pages.

Taking the first one, he handed it to Charon before reading the second, his intent for them to read it obvious.

Holding the offered page, he scanned it quickly.

’Movements are excited. Army groups are preparing to set out. Expected arrival in a weeks time. Numbers are unknown, expected two thousand. Magi unknown, expected three hundred. High Elders have less appearances, cause unknown. Alliance with Eastern settlements is strong. Should be investigated for a weak point.’

The rest of the page continued with similar statements. Each described a different part of the Fort, from the number of citizens to the hours at which the guards around the gates changed. It even catalogued the amount of "noteworthy" commoners, with a list of names and addresses.

’The spy was trying to give them a complete view of the Fort. Are they planning an attack? Or is this just gathering information to track our own movements?’

Glancing up at Emerius, he saw the man was already through half of the stack, reading the words at a blistering pace. Once he finished, he met his gaze, a deep frown on his face.

"He managed to learn a lot in a very short amount of time. All of these were written within the past week, no more than that. It even contains a reference to you."

Charon’s eyebrows raised.

"Me? Where?"

Emerius flipped through the pages until he found the one he was referencing. Double-checking it, he passed it over.

’Stadia continues to produce unexpected results. New fighter "Jester" has made a splash. High-tier necromancy powers. Expected to be unconnected to the hierarchy. Possible contact. Will continue to gather information.’

His eyebrows continued to rise until they were brushing against his hairline.

’He was considering trying to recruit me to help him spy? What possible reason could he have to do that?’

The more he thought about it, the more he realized it made some sense. He was an unknown variable that came out of nowhere. He hid his identity and made a lot of rude remarks. To an outsider, he probably came across as a low-born laborer trying his luck at fighting to hit it big.

Exactly the kind of disgruntled worker who would be looking for an easy way to get rich, even if it meant compromising the security of his own city.

’I can’t blame him for it, but it still sucks to think my morals were held so low.’

Not that he cared very much. People always made their own opinions of him, for better or for worse. If he spent his days worrying about them, he wouldn’t have time for anything else.

Charon handed the papers back to Emerius, who put them back in the order he had found them before stuffing them in his own robe pocket.

"It is unusual how much he was trying to track at once. Normally, a spy would have a specific target, so they would be harder to identify. He must have raised all sorts of alarms by being in so many distinct areas."

Charon couldn’t help but agree, his mind going back to how the man had reacted when caught.

’He said they promised him this wouldn’t happen. I had passed it off as a trapped man being unfairly upset, but what if he had something that gave him hope? A spell or an enchantment could have been protecting him, then wore off at a bad time. If that’s the case, then the Fort could have some dangerous enemies.’

His thoughts were interrupted by a contingent of two Panoplians thundering down the alley, joined by Darius. Their metallic suits clanked and rattled as they moved along the cobblestones at an unexpected speed for their size.

The moment they laid eyes on the spy, they rushed to his side and knelt, attaching two rectangular boxes around his wrists. Once they were affixed, one of the Panoplians touched a button on their forearm. The shackles began to glow blue before snapping together, jerking the man’s arms behind his back.

They hefted him over their shoulder like a sack of potatoes before marching away, the other momentarily staying behind to explain. His voice was robotic like always, without a shred of humanity.

"He will be taken to the Wall. You are allowed to accompany us to perform information extraction, as well as document your findings. Your access will be restricted outside specific rooms. Do not attempt to break protocol."

Darius nodded his agreement and spoke for everyone.

"We understand. We will all be coming with you so that we may collect our dues. Can you notify the last two members of our group?"

The Panoplian extended his arm and pressed a button, a small screen popping up.

"Input member numbers."

Complying, Darius stepped forward and hastily typed in a series of numbers and letters, followed by a quick message explaining that they would all meet at the Wall. Once he finished, he pressed send, the Panoplian retracting his arm and closing the screen.

The mechanized soldier then spun and went to join his comrade.

Darius gave them all a look, followed by a nod in the direction the officers had just gone.

"You heard the man. We do not want to let them out of our sight. Any informants that are seen as ’unclaimed’ become the property of the High Elders, and we will lose our bonus."

Liam’s eyes widened.

"Lose the bonus? Never!"

With vigor, he chased after the Panoplians, unwilling to let them slip away.

Darius shook his head, an action mirrored by Emerius.

Charon glanced at one, then the other, an unexpected thought forming in his head.

’They really are quite similar.’