Chapter 36 - Man Proposes, EON Disposes

Sagat was a markedly tall man, nearly six feet tall, with a tanned complexion, bald, fierce eyes and a large scar that stretched from his chin to his torso. He was quite stocky, and wore reddish leather armour, made from the hide of the Crocodile of the Deep, a powerful level 6 beast that lived in Rhodnius' territory. On his back was an axe of great size, with a shaft a metre long and the axe head was dark in colour, the size of a foot and shaped like the claws of a tiger. His reputation for brutality was well deserved, and in his work as a mercenary there was little he would not have dared to do for money.

At this moment Sagat stood with an undaunted face, in his lair in Corona, watching Jackal and the rest of the mercenaries who had attacked Nerun and company, who stood trembling before him. Surrounding him were some of Sagat's other men, who had returned with him from the Rando Woods. "That's what happened boss. In the end I had to give him the money I had with me from this year's collections to get out of there without Captain Serena giving me any more trouble," said Jackal with his head lowered.

Sagat stared at him without saying a word, which only increased the nerves of Jackal and his men. Finally Sagat raised a hand slowly and before anyone could react he slapped Jackal with the back of his hand and sent him crashing to the ground with such force that Jackal's figure was embedded in the ground. Jackal struggled to his knees, but the right side of his face had multiple facial fractures, several of his teeth had been knocked out and his right eye was reddened, showing that there was sever bleeding within.

After doing so, Sagat looked up and gazed with the same undaunted face at the rest of Jackal's men, who were scared out of their wits, some of them having lost control of their sphincters. Finally two of them could no longer hold their nerves and ran in panic towards the door, trying to flee. Sagat did not move from where he stood, but used his arm like a claw and swiped in the air in the direction of the fleeing men. The rest of Sagat's men watched as a giant paw materialised in the air, like that of a great tiger, and attacked the two mercenaries. They were immediately crushed to the ground, all their bones broken, and lost their lives in a matter of seconds, despair clear in their eyes.

No one else dared to move to escape punishment. They knew that to flee meant death. If they accepted the punishment, they still had a chance of staying alive. Sagat began to move slowly towards the mercenaries in front of him, as he began to say in a deep, somber voice: "Do you realise the mistakes you have made?" No one responded.

"The first of them is that you, Jackal did not keep the box directly with you, but decided to leave it out of your sight. You were confident that you thought you were in a safe place." Sagat said slowly as he broke the arm of one of the mercenaries. "Second, the rest of the mercenaries were not properly guarding their positions. Don't tell me you were, I know you. You've gotten lazy and let your guard down thinking no one would dare to sneak into our lair." The next mercenary soon found himself with an ear and half of his nose missing, ripped straight off by Sagat's hand, as he continued to speak a little more and more agitated.

"Third, you ran all over Corona, and even then you couldn't capture that petty thief, but you did manage to throw our reputation to the ground." One by one he approached each mercenary as he meted out different punishments, an eye, a hand, a leg, all were mutilated in one way or another to appease Sagat's anger. "And what's worse, you let yourselves be fooled by that squirt, and yet you still failed again to capture two more brats and a nobody, and all the while I had to put up with that asshole Apollo coming to blackmail me for bailing you guys out of a jam." Sagat's last words were spoken almost shouting, and the face of a giant, ferocious-looking Tiger appeared above him, as though it were a phantom with no substance, with a face longing to devour the mercenaries. This was the Voluntas of Sagat manifesting.

When all the mercenaries involved were wounded Sagat stopped hurting them and turning to Jackal asked. "Do you even know who they are?"

"Captain Apollo provided us with the information, Boss. The two brats and the young man had indeed only arrived in Corona today in a caravan escorted by Reyes and his men. They appear to be from one of the nearby villages. They are staying in a shabby inn in the Slums with an old drunkard butler. As for the thief, our men have canvassed the slums and found out about a boy who has the same characteristics. His name is Ailan, and he is 12 years old. He used to work as a thief, but he has been quiet for a long time. He has a sister named Eliana, who is a maid in the Renata Family's house," Jackal replied without removing the blood from his face or doing anything to heal his wounds. He knew the boss had been lenient, because in other circumstances, everyone who would have caused him a loss of face would already be dead.

"Boss, if you like, we can go to the inn where those brats and the young man are and finish them off once and for all," one of Sagat's men ventured to say. The latter, however, stared at him as if he were an idiot.

"I'm really surprised we haven't had trouble before with morons like you on my side. Now Captain Serena is keeping a close eye on us. The young man looks like he's going into the army and if anything happens to him before then, it's possible this could come down on us. Normally, I could care less, but now we are at a critical juncture. We can't afford any mistakes or setbacks. When all the business with the Rhodnians is over we will have enough wealth and resources. Then it won't be too late for us to exact our revenge. Hmph. Those three nitwits better not believe, that because a Tiger doesn't roar, it's really a sick kitten," said Sagat with restrained anger.

"The important thing right now is to retrieve the item Ailan stole from us as quickly as possible and prevent others from finding out about our business, or we could find ourselves in big trouble. Men, listen to my orders. Jackal, this is your last chance. If you fail me again, consider your life forfeit. You must, with the utmost stealth and speed, kidnap the sister of the bloody thief who took the box. Since we do not know where he is, we must lure him to us. Although she is a maid in the Renata House, I am sure she must sleep outside the mansion in the servant's quarters. This has to be done this very night, we cannot allow more time to pass and new variables to appear. The rest will go with me to our shelter in the cave. That is where we will set up the ambush and close the deal with the Rhodnians. If all goes well, we won't even have to return to Corona. We may even be able to move to the Great Sacar Tribe. Commander Roland has promised us a sumptuous reward for our efforts."

All the mercenaries immediately set to work. Jackal left with restrained anger and great fury towards the Renata Family Mansion. They had already made the necessary enquiries, and although there were guards at the mansion, they had bribed one to let him pass and capture the girl. The truth was that as long as the Family itself was not affected, the vast majority of Eonia's Noble Families wouldn't give a damn about a poor maid. They might get angry on a matter of principle or face, but the consequences would be rather minor. Of course, this would only be true as long as Commander Sebastian was not present. The man was far too rule-bound, and he might search all of Corona if he ever found out what had happened in his own house. But fortunately, Jackal thought, Commander Sebastian wasn't around.

On the other hand, Nerun and Company were planning their next steps. Maikal had thought that perhaps the best solution was to try to reach Commander Sebastian through Captain Serena. Normally the Commander would be at the Mount David Fortress, but due to the arrival of General Dragon, they did not know if he would be there or elsewhere. The idea was to get the information from Captain Serena at dawn and quickly get the information of the meeting of Sagat and the people of Rhodnius to the Commander. Maikal was confident that he could convince Commander Sebastian, though the others did not know where this confidence came from. The only thing they still had to think about was how to attract the attention of the Violent Tigers in order to find their lair and trap them all.

If finding the Commander quickly was not possible, then they would contact the Night Ravens through Reyes. They had already struck up a friendship with him, and they knew that the two Mercenary Bands were rivals and bitter enemies. They were going to hire them, arguing that the Violent Tigers seemed to have found some treasure, and watch them to discover their base and attack them by surprise. While this second option was the least preferable, for them, if they had no other choice, it might be the only way to slow the Tigers down and prevent their plans from coming to fruition.

Everyone was at ease, since they were in the dark while the Violent Tigers were in the light, and the mercenaries did not know that someone had already discovered their secret and was on their trail.

No sooner had the morning arrived, however, than all these plans went up in smoke. At the slums, word quickly spread that there had been a break-in at the Renata Manor. Eliana, one of the maids, had been abducted during the night, signs of a struggle were evident, and it was not certain that she was still alive.On the first floor of the inn, all the guests were talking about this rumour, and how curious it was that it had spread so quickly, considering that the Renata Family usually tried to hush it up, at least at first.

This was a ploy by Sagat to announce in the slums what had happened so that Ailan would find out and fall into the trap. Indeed, as soon as Ailan heard what was going on he became frantic and wanted to go out to find out what had happened to his sister.

"Big Sister, Big Sister, nothing can have happened to you. Nothing can have happened to you," he kept repeating over and over again, as he ran towards the main road of the city, and then to Renata Manor to make further enquiries. Nerun and the others tried to calm him down, and Maikal suspected that there was something fishy going on, but it proved impossible to calm Ailan's nerves and anxiety, so they could do nothing but follow him closely to make sure nothing happened to him.

Shortly after he had reached the main road and was running towards the main square, he stopped as he noticed a person in his path, about 50 metres from where he was standing. It was a mercenary who was looking at him with a face full of anger and rancour, with half of his face bandaged and one of his eyes was red, as if it was about to explode. Ailan was quick to guess that it was Jackal. Seeing Ailan's reaction, Elijah stopped Nerun and Silvester before they went out into the avenue and were discovered. Maikal quickly climbed up to the rooftops and hid while watching the whole scene, ready to come to Ailan's aid if needed.

However, Jackal did nothing against Ailan, but opened his hand revealing a lock of brown hair, while making a macabre grimace with his face. Ailan froze when he recognised it as his sister's hair. At that moment he realised that he had been identified by the Violent Tigers and that in revenge, they had taken his sister hostage. Before he could even do anything to effect his plans against the Rhodnians, Sagat had already acted against him with a masterstroke.

"It's my fault," Ailan began to say as if he had lost his soul. Jackal said nothing to him, simply pointed to a nearby alleyway and then walked away, heading for the City Gates, clearly intending to get out of the City. Ailan stood still, even as Jackal passed by him, but Jackal did not act against the boy. On the one hand he was not sure if the boy had the Jade Box with him, or if he had someone else helping him. On the other hand, he did not want to scare him away, he wanted him to voluntarily follow him out of the city, and finally he did not want anyone to be able to see him capture the boy. While it was true that the Renata Family would probably not make a big fuss about what had happened, it was best not to leave any clues that they had been responsible.

Maikal disappeared in Jackal's direction, following him stealthily, but not before signalling to Elijah and tossing him a small, closed leather pouch with an item inside. Elijah took it, without looking at the contents, and stowed it in his garment. Then, when Jackal had disappeared, he quickly moved towards the alley that Jackal had pointed out, once he was sure that the coast was clear. Nerun and Silvester in turn approached Ailan and pulled him back into one of the alleyways, while preventing him from running off after Jackal once he came out of his stupor.

Elijah entered the alley and found a note explaining that Ailan's sister Eliana was still alive. If he wanted to see her again, he was to go alone before noon, with the item he had stolen, to the eastern part of the Lake of Rainbow Roses, a known area deep in the Rando Forest. There he could exchange the item for his still unharmed sister. There was no need to explain her fate if he were to miss the meeting.

Causes and Consequences. Ailan kept repeating to himself that this was his fault. If he had not been so risky as to steal Sagat's item, if he had thought things through, instead of letting his revenge and anger get the better of him, his sister would not be in this terrible mess.

Ailan and the others had made several plans in the night, but Sagat acted too quickly and gave them no time to do anything at all. This put them at a distinct disadvantage and they were unable to call for the help they wanted from Captain Serena and the Night Ravens. Man proposes, EON disposes.

The only thing was that Sagat also did not know that Ailan had already enlisted support in the persons of Nerun and the others. Nor that Jackal was being tracked by Maikal and taken directly to the hideout they had prepared to complete the deal with the Rhodnians.

Causes and Consequences. Neither did Sagat know that Commander Sebastian Dai Renata was currently a few miles from the City of Corona, en route to the Rando Woods with one of the Dragon Generals, who wanted to investigate the craters close to the woods. Not that the information of what happened in his mansion would reach his ears so quickly, so the Commander would order a thorough search to find out what had happened as he continued in the direction of the Woods. Most definitely man proposes, EON disposes.