The medical corridor smelled of boiled cloth, lamp oil, and old blood.
Stone benches ran along one wall beneath narrow windows. A medic worked at a table near the far door, washing a child's split forehead while the girl's father held both of her hands. Two travelers waited with their sleeves rolled up. A woman with a broken ankle leaned against the wall beside a stack of folded blankets.
Vhar stopped just inside the corridor with his wrapped blades under one arm. An empty wooden tray stood against the wall within reach, so he set the blades there. The patients crowded both sides of the narrow room, and he needed his hands free more than he needed a dangerous draw between them.
Three men wearing the gray of House Talvern stood at the other end.
The man in the middle wore a dark wool coat with the ninth branch mark at the collar and held a short brass rod. A sealed wooden case rested at his feet. The other two waited behind him with their hands near hooked batons.
The medic looked up from the child. "This is a treatment corridor. Take your dispute to the entry desk."
The man with the brass rod smiled without warmth. "I came for the boy. We will be brief."
"What did House Talvern send you to do?" Vhar asked.
"Bring you back to the ninth branch. The elders need to see what the rite left behind."
"With three men and a sealed case?"
The man's smile faded. "The rite record is wrong. House Talvern has to understand how wrong."
The medic put down her cloth. "No one opens a case in my corridor."
One of the hooked-baton men stepped toward her. "Stay at your table."
The father pulled his daughter closer. The woman with the broken ankle tried to stand and nearly fell.
"Open it," the man with the brass rod said.
His guard broke the red wax on the case.
CLACK!
Inside lay a brass frame shaped like an open collar, with six black cords wound around its hinges. The sight of the cords pulled Vhar back toward the altar for half a breath: red cord biting his wrists, glass partitions, incense smoke, and men watching a body they had already counted as grain.
The sensation passed.
The guard lifted the frame. The six cords slid out with a dry metallic whisper.
RATTLE!
Each cord ran through a groove in the brass rod. The man in the dark coat did not need to touch the frame himself. A twist of his wrist could tighten every line at once, and his guards had already placed the loose ends where they could catch the benches, the medical table, and the people trying to leave.
The medic stepped in front of the child. Her father pulled the girl back against the bench. The men from House Talvern blocked the only exit.
"Move those cords away from them. They have nothing to do with this," Vhar said.
The man with the brass rod tightened his grip. "Walk over now, or the next pull closes around the father."
Vhar looked at the cords. One had already curled around the leg of the medic's table, and another stretched across the path by the injured woman's ankle.
The man raised the brass rod.
The medic's table slammed sideways.
BANG!
The child cried out as the bowl of washwater shattered against the floor. One black cord snapped toward the father's throat. Vhar crossed the corridor before the father had time to lift an arm.
The third Bloodmark drove the impact of his stride down into his spine instead of his knee. He caught the cord with his left hand, turned his shoulder into the pull, and uttered with cold finality as the brass head cut into his grip.
| BLOODLINE RUIN |
CRACK!
The command running through the cord changed direction. The black line whipped back across the corridor and cut into the guard holding the collar frame. It tightened around his wrist, dragged his arm down, and slammed the brass frame into the tiles.
CLANG!
The guard yelled. His hooked baton clattered away. The other guard lunged from the bench side, swinging low for Vhar's knee.
Vhar stepped inside the arc.
His elbow struck the man's jaw.
CRACK!
Teeth burst through the guard's mouth with a spray of blood. His head snapped back into the wall. The stone behind him chipped, and his body folded onto the bench beneath him.
The man from House Talvern did not retreat. He pressed the brass rod again.
"Break the corridor," he said. "Take the boy's head if he reaches the door."
The remaining guard pulled a second cord free and drove it toward the father and child. The father had nowhere to retreat with the bench behind his knees, and the medic was still shielding the girl with her own body.
Vhar stopped treating the man with the rod as someone he might leave breathing.
Vhar caught the cord near its brass head. A fourth Bloodmark locked beneath the pressure. A hard pulse shot from his knuckles through his forearm into his chest, then joined the strength already locked in his legs.
He pulled once.
The guard holding the cord stumbled forward. Vhar used him as a moving shield against the second line, shoved him into the wall, and cleared the space between the benches in two steps.
The man from House Talvern raised the brass rod again.
Vhar was already in front of him.
His right hand drove through the man's coat and into his chest.
CRACK!
Ribs split around Vhar's wrist. Heat closed over his fingers. He found the beating heart beneath the broken bone and closed his hand.
SQUELCH!
The heart burst in his grip.
Blood exploded from his mouth and nose in red mist. His back hit the corridor wall hard enough to fracture the tile. A wet burst tore through the ruined chest behind Vhar's hand, spattering the brass frame, the ceiling, and the gray coats of his guards.
For one breath, the man remained against the wall with Vhar's arm buried in him.
His knees gave way.
Vhar pulled his hand free. The body slid down the cracked wall and left a broad dark smear beneath the branch mark.
The black cords went slack.
The remaining guard dropped his end of the frame. The brass rod rolled from the dead man's fingers and struck the floor.
TING!
The corridor fell quiet except for the child sobbing against her father's shoulder.
Vhar turned toward the guard by the wall. Blood ran from the man's mouth over his chin. He tried to reach for the fallen baton.
Vhar stepped on the baton first.
"Stay down. Your jaw is broken, and another reach for that baton will make it worse."
The guard stopped moving.
The sound from the dead man's chest didn't fade with the rest of the corridor's noise. It settled heavy behind his ribs, and his chest answered back.
The SSS Primeval Bloodforge answered the killing it had witnessed through him.
[SSS PRIMEVAL BLOODFORGE: Slaughter Codice Record]
[ HOST: Vhar Blackvein ]
[ DIRECT KILLING METHOD: Right Hand / Chest Grip ]
[ SLAUGHTER IMPRINT: Accepted ]
[ SLAUGHTER IDENTITY: The Source Of The Last Lethal Order ]
[ CODICES: Death Of The Last Order ]
[ CATEGORY: Slaughter Codice ]
[ CAPABILITY EXPRESSION GRADE: Primeval ]
[ KARNATHAR CODICE ASSESSMENT: I ]
[ CODICE ORIGIN: Direct Slaughter / The Source Of The Last Lethal Order ]
[ CODICE EFFECT: Break The Reached Cord, Vessel, Inscription, Organ, Weapon Linkage, Relay, Or Uvar Conduit Carrying The Lethal Order; The Reversed Force Destroys Its Still-Connected Controller ]
[ CODICE MANIFESTATION: The Reached Command Conduit Breaks And Its Controller Is Crushed, Ruptured, Pierced, Or Torn Apart By The Returning Force ]
[ CODICE BOUNDARY: The Cord, Vessel, Inscription, Organ Link, Weapon Link, Relay, Or Uvar Conduit Must Stay Unbroken Between Your Contact And The Controller ]
[ UVAR USE: 6 Recoverable During First Inscription / No Additional Codice Creation Cost ]
[ UNBOUNDED BLOODFORGE POTENTIAL: Active ]
[ SUCCESSOR EVOLUTION: Open ]
[ REALM: Bloodless Husk ]
[ BLOODMARK: 4th ]
[ UVAR RESERVE: 8 / 36 ]
[ STATUS: Restraint Injuries Active; Fourth Force Circuit Stable ]
[End Slaughter Codice Record]
The panel receded while blood continued pattering from Vhar's fingers. The child had stopped crying, and her father stared from that hand to the body wearing House Talvern's branch mark while the medic covered her mouth.
The woman with the broken ankle sat against the wall with both hands over her ears. One of the travelers had reached the corridor entrance but had not left. He stared at the shattered collar frame, then at the brass rod lying in blood on the tiles. He had heard the order. Everyone in the corridor had heard it.
"Can you treat the child and the woman with the broken ankle first?" he asked the medic.
Her eyes came back to him slowly. "The child is not hurt. The woman's ankle needs looking at. The guards will live if someone keeps pressure on the one with the broken arm."
Vhar glanced at the child beside her father. "The child is safe. I'll keep House Talvern's men away from the others while you work."
He wiped his hand once on the dead man's gray coat and moved between the injured guards and the patients beside the bench.
Footsteps came from the public hall at last. Dema appeared in the doorway with two entry attendants behind her. She stopped when she saw the cracked wall, the body, the cords, and the people gathered behind the bench. Her eyes reached Vhar's hand last.
"Nobody touches the papers," she said, voice low. "Nobody removes that body. I want every name in this corridor before the floor is cleaned."
The attendants began writing while the medic moved to the broken-armed guard. Vhar reclaimed the wrapped blades from the wooden tray and looked once more at the black cords, the shattered brass, and the blood drying in the grout.
There would be no putting this back under a House seal.