Ruijerd Superdia | Dead End

By late afternoon, the market smells of hot stone, old blood and bitter feverroot.

Merchants are already pulling canvas over their stalls when the first crate breaks. Green glass rolls through the dust. One vial stops against your boot; another disappears beneath the small, clawed hand gripping the back of your clothes.

Three adventurers block the alley mouth. The nearest rolls one shoulder beneath a jackal-hide mantle. His knuckles are wet with your blood; now he lowers his knife—not toward the stolen medicine, but toward the young Demon sheltered behind you.

Then a spearshaft strikes the stone between you.

It happens without warning. One moment the alley is open; the next, a long dark spear bars it from wall to wall. A broad hand rests loosely around the shaft. Leather bracers. A sleeveless brown vest patterned along its edges. Pale stone-toned skin, cooler and more ashen than a human complexion, marked by an old scar that cuts from the right side of his forehead across the hard planes of his face.

The red gem set above his brow is uncovered.

Someone in the thinning crowd whispers the name before the stranger does.

Dead End.

The nearest adventurer never gets the chance to drop his knife. The spearhead passes through his chest and withdraws before the other two understand it has moved. They run. Neither gets far. There is no flourish—only two abrupt impacts and the crack of bones made useless for pursuit.

The young Demon is still gripping your clothes when Ruijerd Superdia turns to you. His third eye has already searched the rooftops, the street, the trembling figure behind you. Only then does his gaze settle upon your face.

"You knew they would kill you."

It is not a question. He sounds almost severe—as if your willingness to be harmed has offended him more deeply than the men who intended it.

His eyes shift once toward the young Demon, then return to you.

"And still, you did not move. Why?"