anovelconsole Chapter 516: Eyes
Chapter 516: Eyes
Six weeks passed in a blur of blood and steel and pain that never quite ended.
Nero woke on the forty-third day to find Lyon standing at the foot of his bed instead of the usual attendant. The doctor’s face was unreadable in the grey pre-dawn light filtering through the barred window.
"Get dressed," Lyon said. "You have a hunt."
Nero sat up slowly, his body protesting. The modifications had settled into his flesh over the weeks, but mornings still brought stiffness that took minutes to work through. His left arm—the regrown one—ached differently than the rest of him, a deep cold that started in the bone.
"What am I hunting?"
"Grade C Abomination. Deep in Malady’s Garden, past the second marker. It’s been killing merchants on the southern trade route." Lyon set a bundle on the bed. "You have one day. Bring back the corpse intact."
Nero unwrapped the bundle. A hunting knife, plain steel with a leather-wrapped handle. A spear, wooden shaft with an iron tip, nothing like Gungnir’s perfect balance. A waterskin. A small pouch containing dried meat and hard bread.
"That’s it?"
"That’s sufficient." Lyon walked to the window and looked out at the courtyard below. "The Blood Lotus forges its warriors in suffering. Consider this your introduction to the foundry."
Nero dressed in silence. Simple clothes, grey and brown, nothing that would catch on branches. He strapped the knife to his belt and slung the waterskin over his shoulder.
"What if I fail?"
Lyon turned from the window. "Then you’ll die, and I’ll have wasted six weeks of work and considerable resources. Don’t fail."
He gestured to the door. "The carriage is waiting."
They walked through corridors that were just beginning to stir with morning activity. Templars moved through the halls, their armor clanking softly. Workers hurried past carrying supplies. The smell of cooking food drifted from the kitchens, making Nero’s stomach clench with hunger.
The carriage waited in the courtyard, a plain wooden box on wheels pulled by two horses that looked as worn as everything else in the city. The driver was an older man with a face like weathered leather. He nodded to Lyon but said nothing.
Nero climbed inside. Lyon followed, settling onto the bench across from him. The carriage lurched into motion.
Through the small window, Nero watched the Red House gates swing open. Then they were out, rolling through streets he’d only seen from windows.
The outer districts hit him like a physical blow.
The stench came first. Unwashed bodies, human waste, rotting garbage, the acrid bite of tanning yards and slaughterhouses. It saturated everything, thick enough to taste. Nero pressed his hand to his nose but it did nothing to help.
The streets were barely wide enough for the carriage. Buildings leaned against each other, their upper floors jutting out overhead until only a thin strip of grey sky remained visible. The wood was grey and rotting, the stone crumbling. Some structures looked ready to collapse. Others had already fallen, leaving piles of rubble that nobody bothered to clear.
People huddled in doorways and alleys. Their faces were hollow, eyes sunken and vacant. Children sat in the filth, too weak to move. The destitute lined every corner, hands outstretched, mouths forming words Nero couldn’t hear over the rattle of the carriage wheels.
A woman lay in the gutter, her skin mottled with sores. Dead or dying, Nero couldn’t tell. The carriage rolled past her without slowing.
"Five million souls," Lyon said quietly. "All pressed within forty-foot walls, all desperately clinging to the illusion that stone and steel can keep the darkness out."
The districts improved as they moved inward. The streets widened. The buildings straightened. The smell lessened, though never fully disappeared. Markets appeared, selling vegetables and bread. The people here looked less like walking corpses.
Further still, cobblestones replaced mud. Stone buildings with glass windows. Merchants in actual shops. Guards patrolling in leather armor, cudgels hanging from their belts.
This was where the successful lived. The merchants who’d made fortunes supplying the Templars. The minor nobles whose families had held positions for generations. The Church officials who weren’t important enough for the capital but too valuable to waste in the outer districts.
Their homes were modest compared to true nobility, but they had painted shutters and clean doorsteps and iron fixtures that weren’t crusted with rust. Gardens grew behind high walls, small patches of green in a city drowning in grey.
And yet even here, the cracks showed. Moss growing in shadowed corners. Beggars who’d snuck past the guards, darting into alleys when the patrols approached. The constant pressure of the outer districts pushing inward, threatening to drag everything down into the mud.
The carriage rolled through the Noble Quarter without stopping. The buildings here were larger, set back from the streets behind walls topped with iron spikes. Servants in livery hurried along the sidewalks. A nobleman in silk and fur stepped out of a townhouse, his face twisted with disgust as he noticed the carriage’s plain construction.
Then they were past it all, approaching the southern gate.
The walls loomed ahead, massive things of dark stone that seemed to drink in light. Forty feet high, ten feet thick, covered in runes that glowed faintly even in daylight. Templars stood watch at intervals along the ramparts, their crimson armor gleaming.
The gate itself was iron-bound oak, thick enough that battering rams would shatter before making a dent. As the carriage approached, guards stepped forward. One glanced inside, saw Lyon, and waved them through without question.
The gate groaned open.
Beyond lay the killing ground.
A hundred yards of bare earth stretched between the walls and the tree line, kept clear by constant patrols. Stumps dotted the landscape where trees had been cut back. The ground was scorched in places, evidence of recent fires. A gibbet stood near the road, three corpses dangling from chains. Their crimes were painted on signs hanging from their necks: Corruption. Heresy. Theft from the Church.
The tree line marked the edge of Malady’s Garden. Even from here, Nero could see how wrong it was. The trees were too large, their trunks thick as houses. The canopy was too dense, blocking out the sky. Nothing moved in the shadows beneath.
The carriage stopped.