False Covenant

“Don't think at me in that tone of voice, Olgun! I can so take care of the tavern! I just need one job to go right, and we're set! Well, for a while, anyway.

“Ooh, you're impossible! I won't get caught! I haven't yet, have I?”

Olgun reached directly into her mind, or so it felt, and hauled a memory of Julien Bouniard across her vision. Widdershins's face, which had just returned to its normal color, went red once more.

“One time,” she muttered. “I won't count on it again. I won't need to count on it again! I'm better than that, I was just…out of practice. Oh, shut up!”

Still arguing with her god, Widdershins stalked from the cemetery and toward the poor, dilapidated district known as Ragway-and the headquarters of the Finders' Guild.

Dusk crawled across the face of Davillon, dragging the heavier shroud of night slowly behind. And with it, too, came a gentle but pervasive spring drizzle-not even true rain, really, but simply a wetness in the air that transformed itself into drops at the slightest provocation, so that pedestrians grew far wetter than the roads on which they traveled. Some increased their pace, hoping to escape the sudden damp and chill; others welcomed any relief from the warmth of the day.

Not, it should be noted, that there were all that many pedestrians on the streets of Davillon after dusk. The tales and rumors of brazen assaults on citizens by apparently supernatural perpetrators, though only a week old, had matured into panic. (The fact that the tales grew with each telling, as such stories always do, only succeeded in heightening the fear even further.) The Guard added extra patrols in those neighborhoods where the peculiar phantasm had struck, but nobody (including, if one were to be brutally honest, the Guardsmen themselves) actually expected it to do any good. People were more than content to go about their business during the day, but as the skies darkened, the streets emptied with dramatic alacrity as citizens retired to their homes, or-in slowly but steadily growing numbers-to late masses at the Pact churches.

But then, there were those who scoffed at the danger, either refusing to believe the rumors or pointing out that the odds were pretty dramatically against any one specific person falling victim. There were those willing to take any risk, if it meant the success of this endeavor or that. And there were those whose livelihoods or objectives simply required that they brave the late hours.

Such was the case with Faustine Lebeau. The young woman-just a sliver older than Widdershins, though such a comparison would have meant nothing to her, as the two of them had never met-served as a messenger and courier for several of the city's wealthier merchants. As such, she was a common sight on the streets whenever she was required, day or night; long limbs pumping as she ran, her hair trailing behind her in a streamer of blonde so pale it was almost silver. Tonight, one particularly careless vendor had neglected to pay his supplier of fine textiles- for the third time this year-and had sent Faustine to deliver his last-minute apologies and to assure the good fellow that his fee would be forthcoming first thing in the morning.

A fairly mundane errand, all things considered, but one that kept Faustine out into the late hours of the evening. The walkways and alleys by which she passed slowly emptied, the sounds of footsteps faded into the distance, until she felt-no matter how much she told herself it wasn't true-that she was the only soul left in Davillon.

A moment later, as the soft laughter sounded from above, as some dark silhouette scuttled downward along the side of the nearest home, she wished she were.

She ran, then, ran as she never had while on a simple commission, her deep-blue skirts and formal blouse soaking up the not quite rain as efficiently as bath towels. She refused to slow even long enough to look behind, biting back a whimper and speeding up even further-though her legs began to ache and her side to burn-when she heard the chilling laughter still close to heel.

And then Faustine rounded a corner, and couldn't help but scream. The shape had somehow gotten in front of her, was now dropping from another wall to land before her in the street. Faustine fumbled for the dagger she kept in her skirts-she carried a small flintlock, too, but even had her hands not been shaking too violently to aim, the drizzle would assuredly have spoiled the powder-and raised it before her in a competent knife-fighter's grip.

The creature only laughed harder. With impossible speed, as though moving between heartbeats, it darted forward. Faustine got a glimpse of heavy black fabrics, covering the form from head to toe, before it lashed out at her wrist. A shock of pain traveled up her arm, and the dagger flew harmlessly from her numbed fingers.

Whether Faustine would have been injured and terrorized, as most victims of the peculiar apparition had been, or whether she would have been the first to suffer a more terminal fate is unclear, because neither occurred. Even as the dark-wrapped figure straightened an arm to strike, the scuff of a boot in the shadows snagged the attention of creature and courier both. Both craned their necks to look, and it was only the assailant's inhuman speed that allowed it to leap away from the path of a whistling blade.

Faustine couldn't make out much about her savior-not between the dark, the drizzle, and the rapid movement. She saw only a tall man in a dark coat, wielding an elegant rapier against the thing that had attacked her. His feet practically danced across the cobblestones, and his sword wove elaborate designs in the air. Faustine had seen more than her share of duels, and though it was difficult to tell when he faced such a peculiar opponent, if he wasn't easily one of the best swordsmen she'd ever seen, she'd eat the dagger she'd recently lost.

Still, he was human (or so he appeared, and so she assumed), and his adversary didn't seem to be. The man in the coat launched a series of rapid thrusts from a variety of surprising and sometimes nigh-impossible angles, and each time the silhouette shifted away at the last moment. Yet neither could the phantasm penetrate the woven web of sharpened steel long enough for even a single counterattack.

They settled swiftly, even instinctively, into a pattern that was nearly a dance, with each specific slash or thrust leading to a particular twist; each attempted riposte resulting in a specific parry. Step, step, cross-step, twist; thrust, slash, parry, lunge. Their feet on the cobbles provided a musical accompaniment, and the entire affair was borderline hypnotic.

And then, without so much as a flicker or a tremor to give himself away, the man in the coat broke that pattern. Rather than parry the dark figure's attempted grab, as he'd done half a dozen times now, he instead lunged forward on bended knee, dropping so low as to pass beneath the outstretched arm, and drove his blade home. Only the tip of the rapier, the first inch or so, penetrated whatever flesh lurked beneath the heavy black fabrics.

The result was a very human scream, immediately followed by the figure scampering off far faster than any normal person could have pursued. Something about the acoustics of the street and the heavy, rain-drenched air made it sound as though the shriek of pain echoed back at them from a different direction the same instant it erupted from the cloth-wrapped throat.

Faustine darted forward to stand beside her rescuer, who was currently examining the tip of his blade. Although it was already starting to run in the gentle rain, the liquid beading on the steel certainly appeared-so far as the feeble lighting allowed her to see it at all-to be normal, red blood.

Even as she opened her mouth to speak, however, the man shrugged and faced her. “Would you, m'lady, happen to have a cloth or a handkerchief you'd be willing to part with?”

Puzzled, she reached into her bodice and removed a scrap of linen. He bowed from the neck, then proceeded to clean his blade. “I can, of course, reimburse you for this…,” he began.

“Oh, don't you dare!” She smiled, even as she shouted. “I think I can afford the cost of a handkerchief for the man who saved my life.”

He returned her smile, sheathed his rapier, and began casting around as though looking for something. “I'm just glad,” he said, “that my own errands have kept me in this part of town. Otherwise, I'd never have been near enough to hear your cry.”

Faustine shuddered briefly at the implication-and then knelt as something caught her attention. From the shadows where he'd first emerged, she lifted a sodden tricorne hat.

“Is this what you're looking for?” she asked.

He bowed once more. “Indeed it is. My thanks, m'lady…?”

This time, there was no mistaking the question. “Faustine. Faustine Lebeau. And you, sir?”