Cold: Chapter Ten
In which your decision to confront the guard might not have been the wisest choice, but then again, maybe it was exactly what you needed to do.
Chapter 10
“Wait, I promise, I swear to Nodens, I’m loyal! I’m loyal!” The man screamed and prostrated himself in front of the guard’s spear, sobbing.
“We have reports that you attended a secret gathering of the Cold One’s minions.”
“I don’t know who reported me, but they’re wrong…they’re…they’re out to get me. I know who it was. I know!” The man burst out in laughter that fluttered out of his mouth like a terrified moth. “It was Hax Brownfield! Was it Hax? Did he tell you?”
“This discussion is pointless.”
The man screamed as the guard raised his spear.
“Hey,” I said, heat and memory rising, of the war, of the things I saw there. I wouldn’t allow another unjust death. Not here, not now. I felt fire in my mind, and I knew I could activate it, use it somehow.
“Remove yourself, citizen. This is not your business.” The guard reached the apex of his swing.
“Stop!” I yelled, and with my voice, black smoke flew out of my mouth and hit the guard with a gale-force wind, knocking him prone.
“You…you’re…what are you?” The terrified man asked, glancing at the fallen guard.
“You…you’re one of the…quick, we must go…”
That was Jubin, sunken eyes wide and staring. He grabbed my hand with a skeletal claw and pulled me onward. I glanced back to see the prostrate man scramble to his feet and scamper away before the guard recovered his senses.
“Run,” Jubin said, and then took his own advice.
“Stop! In the name of Nodens!” The guard yelled behind me. “Get him!”
Further voices and urgent footfalls behind us. We sprinted for our lives toward the priests’ tower. I caught glimpses of crowds forming on the street, watching the chase, people wearing bright colors, a cacophony of hues that blurred as we ran.
Jubin tripped and nearly fell, but he recovered by doing a kind of strange sideways somersault and coming back up running as fast as he had been.
“Nice moves,” I huffed, straining for a new burst of speed.
“Thanks,” Jubin said.
We reached a T-junction between two shacks cobbled together from bits of scrap onyx and wood.
“Left,” Jubin said, and set off in that direction.
“You sure?” I called after.
“Trust me!” He called back.
I turned left and kept running, still hearing the guards’ footsteps behind me, wondering if they were catching up, not sure if we’d be tackled at some kind of upcoming roadblock.
Something zinged past me, small and fast and pointed. I looked back and saw one of the guards pointing a crossbow at us.
“Halt in the name of Nodens!” The guard called, and then fired another shot. This one missed me by only inches.
“Here!” I shouted, seeing a small alley that we could zag into and shield ourselves. Jubin skidded into the alley and I followed.
My breath burned with every step, and I found myself coughing up smoke every so often. The fuck is this?
A crossbow bolt thudded into a wall next to my head. Anger and defiance joined the fear and panic in my head, and I wished to any God that might be listening that I had a weapon on me. Just something that I could blow this asshole guard’s face off with.
Something cold appeared in my right hand. I looked down and saw that I held a wicked looking 9mm SIG sidearm, just like the one I used in the war. I grinned, spun around, aimed, and fired, getting the shot off just as the guard loosed another bolt at me. The guard’s head snapped back, a neat hole in the forehead, brains spraying out behind him, and I felt a hard impact in my left shoulder that bloomed with hot pain. I gritted my teeth and aimed the weapon at the guard’s buddies, who skidded to a halt behind him and trained their crossbows on me.
“Stand down and live,” I called, ignoring the wet heat coming from my shoulder.
“Run, Ken Fields!” Jubin called from behind me. “Just run!”
“Too late for that,” I called back. “You run.”
I saw a trigger finger twitch, and I fired. The guard crumpled before he could get a shot off.
Three remained.
“One of the others of you might get me, but do you want to take that chance?” I called.
The guards looked at each other.
“What is that?” One of the guards called.
“It’s called a gun. It’s a lot faster than a crossbow bolt, and it does a hell of a lot more damage.”
“Who are you?”
“You wait to ask me that now?”
“You manifested a wind of black smoke. You manifested a weapon that should not exist here.”
“Yes I did. Now, if you want to know more, I’d be pleased as punch if you’d take me to your priests so I can explain everything.”
“Why do you need to see the priests?”
“Two reasons,” I said. “I want to help you fight the Cold One, and I want to go home.”
“You cannot go home?”
“I believe the Cold One brought me here against my will,” I said. “Because I’m investigating the cult in the waking world.”
The guards lowered their weapons. “You’ll have to answer for the deaths you caused,” one of them said.
“Self-defense. I don’t recognize your authority to kill people without due process.”
“Whether you recognize our authority is irrelevant. You are in our jurisdiction.”
“Are you going to take me to your priests, or are we going to stand here and yammer about jurisdiction?”
By this time, Jubin had appeared at my side.
“You travel with a ghoul?” The guard asked, a sneer on his lip.
“Yes,” I said. “Jubin’s been a good friend. He helped me get here. Along with some…what did you call them?”
“Night-gaunts,” Jubin said. “They flew us from the Giants’ Quarry to the city.”
“You…commanded night-gaunts?” The guard asked, the sneer turning into an open-mouthed gape.
“Well, I don’t know if ‘commanded’ is the right word,” I said.
“Yes,” Jubin said. “Nodens understands this human’s mission and sent his minions to assist.”
“That is…quite a story,” the guard said. “We will allow the priests to determine its veracity.”
“Thank you,” I said. “That’s all I wanted.”
The gun in my hand dissolved into mist. I felt dizzy and realized I’d lost a lot of blood.
“Just uh…give me a minute,” I mumbled, sitting heavily on the ground, darkness and static at the edges of my vision. I looked at the crossbow bolt sticking out of my shoulder, saw the side of my tunic running with blood.
“No,” I said to the encroaching darkness1. “This didn’t happen.”
As I said those words, smoke once again left my mouth, and this time it swirled around the crossbow bolt. I felt cold, then warm, then strength began to return to me. As the smoke dissipated, I saw that the bolt had disappeared, along with the hole and the blood in my tunic.
“Now,” I said, standing. “Take me to your priests.”
We approached the huge black door of the priests’ tower. Guards blocked the entrance with crossed spears.
“Allow this one entry,” said the guard who’d spoken to me in the alley, the apparent leader of the three who had escorted me here.
The two door guards removed their spears and stepped out of the way.
“The ghoul may not enter,” one of them said. Jubin stepped aside.
“Wait, why not?” I asked.
“Ghouls are not worthy of the favor of Nodens,” the door guard insisted.
“Look, this guy has been my guide for some time, and I don’t—”
“Ghouls are not allowed inside,” the door guard repeated.
“I’ll be fine,” Jubin said, but I sensed something in that skeletal face. His sunken eyes darted around between the guards.
“He’ll be here, alive, and fine, when I come out, won’t he?”
“The ghoul may not enter,” the door guard said.
“Go,” Jubin said, but I didn’t like how he said it.
Next Chapter→
Free image from here, slightly edited. Not AI.
I rolled a Constitution save. Result: 2 out of 100 (extreme success). (I swear I’m not making up these rolls). And yes, I’m sort of mixing D&D and Call of Cthulhu rules in this story. It’s TTRPG jazz, man. Just go with it.
I love the dream-magic of being able to manifest a gun and heal yourself 😊