The Godsfall Chronicles

The three men slipped out of the hotel through the window and onto the roof ledge below . From there, they slipped overhead until they could drop down unseen onto a quiet street . They took furtive looks to the left and right before quickly racing off . They almost made it out of the settlement before their plans were unceremoniously halted .

The loud tw.a.n.g of a bowstrings caught their ears . Arrows started screaming pa.s.sed .

“Careful! It’s an ambus.h.!.+”

The sudden attack took Gibbon and the scarred thug by surprise . They were too slow, and both were almost immediately sprouting with arrow shafts . One screamed in pain and fell to the floor . The other was pinned to a nearby wall . It happened in the blink of an eye .

Their leader was also caught off guard and one of the arrows caught him, too . It wasn’t fatal, but there was no getting away now .

It was only a few moments before he was surrounded by crossbow- wielding attackers .

A muscular gentlemen approached, with his thick arms crossed . “Give us the eboncrys and the girl, and we’ll let you live . ”

The insidious man had not expected to be blinded by greed, but here he was . Gritting his teeth, he dragged the tightly wrapped body of Autumn over . He wasn’t going to let his riches go without a fight . “This b.i.t.c.h is mine, who the f.u.c.k are you to keep all the profit for yourselves? Take one more step and I’ll kill her . I asked already, and she told me where there’s more eboncrys hidden . If she dies you don’t get s.h.i.+t!”

“Look at this one, acting like he can make demands . ” The burly man unfurled his arms and pulled open his s.h.i.+rt, revealing an intricate weave of tattoos across his chest . “Try it . If you’ve got the b.a.l.l.s . ”

The thief’s eyes went wide . “Highwaymen!”

The men answered his shock with hideous grins . The Highwaymen were the largest criminal enterprise in the borderlands . They had eyes and ears in every outpost, that’s how they were able to pick off merchant caravans . This group was a cell who operated in the Sandbar, and one of them had been in the variety shop when Autumn came in . He saw the parcel she flashed and had immediately told the others .

Their leader growled dangerously . “You know us, what we can do, and my patience is running out . Kill her, if you think you can . ”

“Fine! I give up . Ruthless f.u.c.ks!”

The man knew this wasn’t going to go his way . The Highwaymen were known for their tyranny and aggressiveness . If he really killed the woman they weren’t just going to end his life . They were going to make him suffer . After thinking about it for a minute he decided his life wasn’t worth it . So he stepped back until he was a few meters away from the others and, when he thought he was safe, put the girl down .

“Kill him . ”

“You – Ah!”

With his leg injured, the man couldn’t avoid all of the arrows that came at him . They punched a dozen holes through him as he screamed, then met his violent end .

His demise was punctuated by a chuckle from the large man . “That’s what you get for trying to bargain with the Highwaymen . ”

All of the noise had stirred Autumn from her drug-induced haze, but the anesthetic still made her weak . She could hardly move her arms, much less escape, but she struggle onto her back to see what was happening .

“Bring her!” The big man waved a hand . “Let’s move . ”

“Who are you? I don’t know you!” Autumn saw the corpses and fear crept into her face . “What are you going to do with me!”

Two of the thugs walked over to her, but not to chat . One brought his hand back to knock her out .

Just then there was a flash of yellow that swept across both men’s throats . Their heads lurched back as pillars of blood spat from newly-made holes in their necks . Autumn was quickly soaked in hot, red fluid . The men were dead before they knew it .

“What the f.u.c.k?!” The big man yelled .

The flash of yellow returned, landing on the ground . Finally the men got a good look, and what they saw baffled them .

It was a bird, about the size of a fist . Its neck was almost comically short, with the head and body of an owl . Its whole body was covered in golden feathers and a pair of big round eyes stared unblinking at the crew . They were bright and intelligent, and as the bird flapped its wings blood splattered off its right side .  

A bird? What the f.u.c.k kind of animal was this?!

The creature slowly blinked its big eyes . At rest, the goofy-looking thing seemed completely harmless . Nothing about it hinted that the bird could move faster than a bullet, with wings sharp as a blade’s edge .

The look on the big man’s face said he sensed something wasn’t right . This thing didn’t seem like a mutant animal . But he didn’t waste much time thinking about it . “Shoot it,” he ordered .

It was just a bird, right?

Members of the Highwaymen were formidable thugs . There was no lack of decent fighters in their ranks . The little golden bird would make good target practice, they thought, as they reset their crossbows .

Oddball watched with its big eyes as the arrows came . It squatted down, kicked off the grouwnd with its scrawny legs, and took off like a bolt of lightning .

Its wings beat with unrivaled speed . But to Oddball, everything seemed to be moving slow as a snail .

It reached the first arrow and kicked it with just enough force to change its trajectory . The arrow had been headed right for the girl’s back . Oddball slipped pa.s.sed the second arrow, then used its duck-like bill to strike the third . That one threatened the girl as well .

An explosion of golden light erupted from Oddball, surging from each s.h.i.+mmering feather . The bird dashed pa.s.sed the remaining arrows to the thugs behind, sweeping by and then sinking into their leader’s body . Half a blink later the tiny bird burst out of his back .

Three lives were unceremoniously ended by the little critter . It’d slowed from the effort, but as it spun around Oddball beat its wings frantically . Four plumes shot out like a handful of throwing daggers . Each one caught a distant thug right between the eyebrows as they struggled to reload their crossbows .

Autumn had managed by then to wriggle herself out of the bedsheet .

She looked around in speechless confusion . Half a dozen arrows were scattered around her in a circle . Then, from the corner of her eye she caught a flash of yellow and another hoodlum hit the ground like a sack of potatoes . It all happened far too fast for her to see clearly .

The bird moved even faster than a bullet! What kind of creature was this? Certainly no typical bird, that was for sure!

The several thugs left decided this wasn’t worth dying for . They threw down their weapons and high-tailed it toward the safety of back alleys .

Autumn had never seen a creature like this . She was just as terrified as the thugs, and was preparing to flee herself when the bird appeared right in front of her . It gave her a gentle peck, which earned a terrified yelp from the girl . She covered her face and scrambled back .

The strange bird kept knocking its beak against the back of her head until Autumn finally understood it was trying to get her to follow . She saw what the bird could do to soft human flesh, and with no alternative she picked up the parcel of eboncrys and followed it .

Huh? The variety shop? Autumn found herself standing before the familiar doorway . It was closed, but just as she was considering whether to make a run for it the hinges creaked . It swung open, apparently under its own power, and a lazy voice called out to her from inside . “Come on in!”

The little yellow bird entered without hesitation .

Autumn followed, though with far more caution . The store’s interior was dimly lit with electric bulbs and the gramophone from before was still playing soft music . A young man around twenty years old sat in a large rattan chair, rocking back and forth . He looked perfectly at ease . The little bird went right to him and alighted on his left hand, where it pecked at a pellet of food .

Did this strange creature belong to the store’s owner? Autumn wasn’t the brightest, but she was starting to catch on .

“You saved me,” she said, half in a trance .

“You’re not as stupid as you look . ” Cloudhawk stopped rocking and looked over the girl’s face, absent the veil . He’d seen any number of pretty women, but she was still striking . “You’ve got enough in that parcel to buy half of this town . You’re obviously an easy target, but you made no attempt to hide your wealth . I honestly don’t know how you even made it here alive . ”

Autumn’s face burned with embarra.s.sment . “I’m sorry for the trouble . I can compensate you . ”

“And how exactly do you plan to ‘compensate’ me?”

“I…”

He interrupted her awkward silence with a laugh . “You’ve already delivered the stones right to me, so think carefully . ”

Autumn was nervous and took a couple frightened steps backward . But a glance at the yellow bird and she knew there was nowhere to run, it just made her look guilty . The store owner looked like a young man, but if he raised a bird like that there was definitely more to him than what was on the surface .

Her mind raced . She had an idea .

s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up her courage, Autumn pled her case . “If you… . If you could help me, there are many more crystals where these came from . ”

Cloudhawk was ever more curious in this girl’s backstory . She was about as bright as pile of rocks and weak as a child, but she definitely had money to back her up . She claimed to be capable of getting him much more eboncrys . Maybe her family came from a place where it was made .

Luckily for her, money was exactly what Cloudhawk needed . So her offer intrigued him . “What do you need done?”

“I want to hire you to bring me somewhere . a place called Fishmonger’s Borough . My tribe’s ancestral treasure is there somewhere . Help me recover it, escort me back, give me the equipment I ordered, and take me back to my people . If you do that you’ll have as much eboncrys as you want . You have my word!”

“Tribe?” Cloudhawk was curious . “Is your tribe out in the wastelands?”

No one from the elysian lands called their group a ‘tribe . ’ None of them looked like her, anyway . The girl had to be from some isolated wasteland settlement somewhere, a place she’d probably never left before now . That would explain why she was waltzing around like an idiot . Most importantly, it seemed like wherever she came from was also where eboncrys was made .

But that was hardly information that was wise to share!

If his suspicions were true and word got out, things would turn from bad to worse for the naïve girl . It wasn’t just wastelanders, elysians would be scrambling over one another for information about where she came from . She was the key to an incredibly valuable prize!

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