Anaphean Borderlands
The Season of Heat
Fanán the 18; 2421

Foul air clung to the town like a pestilent blanket. The breeze had died some days earlier, leaving the inland provinces to suffer in sweltering, stagnant heat. A thick silence reigned. Even the animals had fled. Nothing moved but for a few wisps of smoke rising from smoldering ruins.

Valory bar Adrianth picked his way down a side street, sun beating down on his shoulders as he searched a row of houses for survivors. Fire had ravaged many of them. Walls were scorched, roofs caved in, and the smell – the smell alone would churn even the most hardened of stomachs. He had spent the morning with a kerchief tied around his nose and mouth, though it still took all of his willpower not to gag.

Approaching yet another fire-blackened doorway, he paused as his eyes fell upon a pair of nails driven into the frame. His boots traced patterns in ash as he moved about the stoop, fingers snagging on several more pairs of nails hammered into the other side. A frown tugged at his lips. He wondered whether, in his rush to clear through each of the houses, he had missed other such details. Then again, perhaps such details were no longer there. Most of the buildings suffered far worse fates than this one. Fire hadn't ravaged it as thoroughly as its neighbors.

Stepping inside the threshold, he froze as his eyes fell upon the twisted corpses that lay before him. Taking a long, slow breath, he swallowed down the rush of nauseous horror that assailed him. These weren't the first bodies he had encountered that morning, nor would they be the last.

A second look revealed that the house once had four occupants: a small family. They lay huddled together on the floor where they had retreated when the smoke became too thick to bear. Forcing himself to think critically, Valory paced a circle around the bodies, examining their positions before returning to the front door. From what he had seen that morning, the majority of the townspeople had perished in bed, unaware of the attack unfolding around them. The rest, however, he always encountered in the front room. At first he had assumed that they awoke during the attack and perished before they could escape their dwellings. The scene in this house gave him pause. There was no reason, after all, why they would have had time to huddle together in such a manner, yet not enough time to cross the threshold into open air.

Unless, of course, a bar had been nailed across their door, preventing them from making an escape. Valory grit his teeth. The fire was premeditated: of that he had no doubt.

The crunch of charcoal beneath booted feet sent Valory whirling, sword half out of his scabbard by the time he faced the hulking man ducking into the room beside him. He relaxed at the sight of Little's familiar form.

"Been looking for you for ages," Little boomed. "What are you—" He broke off at the sight of the bodies on the floor, ruddy face going ashen. A shaky hand pressed two fingers to his brow.

Valory echoed the gesture, a whispered prayer passing through his lips. He brushed past Little, squeezing through the door and over the stoop to the street where he stopped, swallowing against the tightness in his chest. Head tipped back, he stared unseeing up at the cloudless sky.

"This was no accident," he said. "Someone burned Lannoch."

"S'what we thought, too. The others are by the square. We may have found something."

Valory looked back towards the ruined house where Little still stood. "Found what?"

"A body that doesn't belong here."

That was all he needed to hear. Valory turned on his heel and strode up the street. He made for the town's few public buildings with Little right on his heels.

He caught sight of Imran and Gabriel as he rounded a corner. They were of a height and stood shoulder-to-shoulder, though that was where any similarity between them ended. Sharp-featured Imran wore his perpetual scowl while gentle Gabriel turned a soft, mournful stare on the charred remains at their feet.

"Some handiwork," Little muttered as Valory came to stand alongside them.

Gabriel looked up, dark eyes wide. "It's the first body we've seen outside a structure. The rest—" his eyes lost some of their focus, as though he reached out to grasp something none of them could see. "The rest died in their homes. We found no sign of survivors."

Valory bent, swatting away flies to examine the tattered remains of clothing shrouding the body. The fabric was lightweight and quilted, cut to hide the leather holsters strapped across its caved-in ribcage.

"A fighting man," Little guessed, though they all knew Oceanic soldiers wore nothing of the sort.

Imran sniffed. "Dramor." He said it with a unique accent — a sibilance the others' voices lacked.

Many years had passed since the last armed conflict with their landlocked neighbor, but Valory couldn't deny Imran's assessment. The double holster could only belong to one of the Dramorian sultan's elite fighters. He grit his teeth, wishing the warrior alive to give them answers — and to answer, in turn, for what he'd done to their people.

"Why would Dramor come here?" Gabriel asked. "It's a long way through the desert to reach this part of our border. Without a marching army, they can't have aimed at taking territory."

Little frowned. "We should have seen the signs, if this was done by a bigger company."

"There was no company." Valory stood. "This is no ordinary soldier."

Realizing that his teammates all looked to him for input, Imran shrugged, flicking his dark braid over a shoulder. Next to Little he appeared slight, moving with a grace that belied his deadly power with a blade. "It is pointless killing. No gain in lands."

"They're not military?" Little asked.

"They are men of the sultan, but not true military."

"Like us," Valory confirmed. "He has the armor of an elite warrior, but bears no company sigil."

"So all of this?" Gabriel asked, gesturing to the utter devastation surrounding them.

"Purposeless," Valory said through clenched teeth. "Mindless, needless killing: and not the first nor the last we'll have seen by the year's end."

This was no mere guess on his part. They had encountered a series of worrisome scenes over the past months: the bones of predatory creatures by the roadside, a foul scent on the westerly wind, disappearances of dignitaries followed by rumors of war. The hard-won, decades-old peace was disintegrating before their eyes without reason, crumbling before they could learn enough to assign blame.

"Reckon it's bait?" Little suggested.

"For who?"

"For us? For the King?" Little continued.

Valory blew out a long breath. "Perhaps. If this is Dramor's work, someone is trying to incite a reaction from us. Gods only know why they're looking to start a war."

"Especially after how the last one went for them," Little huffed.

Imran squatted next to the body, examining it with care. "You may think this is bias of mine, but this is not the style of the men of this order."

"Bias or no, you'd know better than us, wouldn't you?" Little shrugged as he wiped the sweat from his ruddy brow.

"Something isn't right," Imran insisted, brow pinched. For all of his worry he was the least harried between them, cool and collected and pale in spite of days of traveling through the Borderlands — a product of his heritage. He'd know best, Little said, and it was no more than the truth — because Imran had once worn the quilted armor of a Dramorian prize fighter, years ago.

Valory considered the oddities that he had seen that morning: the preyed-upon livestock, the nails in the doorframe, the lone semi-uniformed attacker. He began to pace his way across the green as he thought, leading his men back towards their horses. "This is no typical raid. As much as it pains me to say this, we must report it."

"Not—"

"In person," Valory confirmed. His statement met with a chorus of groans.

"To Anaphe? Nothing good ever comes out of Anaphe," Imran scowled.

"Imran—" Valory began.

"It is not personal for me. Anaphe was not taken back from Dramor during my lifetime. You of all people know that I have no love lost for my mother country."

Imran had defected from Dramor years ago — long enough that Valory was inclined to trust his opinion without reservation.

"Then?" Valory prompted.

"Bad luck follows us through the Borderlands, especially to Anaphe. Will you tempt fate?"

"I'm afraid we don't have much of a choice. This is a matter I must discuss with Lord Conrad," Valory replied.

"We could make for Armathia instead," Gabriel suggested.

Little snorted. "As if the court in the capital is a better option."

"As if the capital's politicians give a drake's hide about a small southwestern town," Imran spat.

That was the heart of the problem. Valory didn't have any desire to return to Armathia either, but he'd give the order in a heartbeat if he thought it would prevent further suffering along the border. Yet the court in Armathia stood so far removed from daily life on the southern peninsula that he doubted any good would come of making the trip. News of what had happened on the border would soon be lost in the day-to-day administration of a realm Oceana's size, swallowed up by reports and petitions from diplomats arriving from the Midlands, the highlands, the isles — no. Better to deal with a regional official, and one who was meant to be loyal to him at that. He had to report this to Anaphe's viceroy, and see what news Conrad had gathered for him in return. If that meant going to the city itself, well.

"Imran's got to the heart of the matter. Armathia is too far to help us. It's why my father sent Conrad to Anaphe in the first place."

That, and to fill the power vacuum left behind when the province's Duke fled to Armathia. Anaphe had been a disaster of political unrest since its reconquest, but at least it had a competent leader upon its dais once more.

Gabriel sighed, picking his way across the green. "It will be nice to see Lord Conrad again, at least. He's always a hospitable host."

"I should hope so. He'll be my Steward one day," Valory noted. He turned away from the main street of the town, doing his best to ignore the wreckage around them.

"At least there's a breeze on the coast. It's hotter than Arrar's backside in here," Little muttered.

"Coastal route?" Gabriel offered.

"We are nearly to the Season of Storms, no? The coastal route will bring danger," Imran pointed out.

"But it's much faster, if we're lucky," Gabe countered. "It shouldn't flood out for at least another month."

"When are we ever lucky?"

"Fair enough. We'll take the overland route. All in favor?" Valory asked, ice-chip eyes surveying his men. The three murmured their assent.

"Well then," Gabriel said, sparing one last glance for the ruined town, "I suppose we have some preparations to make."

...

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