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Order of the Black Foot Chapter 4: Assassin's Thoughts For DrakeHavok By Draconicon

Havok hadn't had a home for years. So, when the camp became his home, he didn't know how to handle it.

The white dragon paced back and forth in front of the map tent, armored gloves clasped behind his back as he grumbled under his breath, his boots kicking up dust and clearing a spot in the space in front of the tent. Every so often, one of the soldiers - marked with a footprint over their bellies rather than their chest or face - approached, but they backed off as soon as he fixed them with a glare. Nobody was getting into this tent before him. Nobody.

Back and forth, back and forth he paced, growling under his breath as he pulled his cloak a little tighter, adjusted the weapons at his waist, anything to occupy himself as he waited for his...master...to be free.

The word in and of itself was a stupid one. There shouldn't be a master. Shouldn't be a master anywhere, for anyone. The world should be a free place. Authority always meant disaster. Either an Emperor made choices that made someone unhappy, or a church decided to send the world to hell. Either way, life got worse.

At least when it was everyone for themselves, you only had yourself to blame if something went wrong. It was your fault, nobody else's, if you managed to screw up your life.

Havok growled again as he looked through the slit of the tent. Draconicon, the black dragon in charge of the entire Order of the Black Foot, was still bent over the map, sliding things along it before moving it back. He'd been at that for a good hour now, a good hour past when he should have been on the hunt.

You promised me a daily hunt, Draconicon. A daily hunt for the people that killed my family.

There was no answer. Then again, it was hardly something he expected an answer to. Despite the new telepathic links between him and the leader of the Order, there was seldom any real communication there. It only felt like a way for him to complain. Which he did. A lot.

However, it didn't change anything, and he was sick of waiting. Shaking his head, Havok stepped out of the rut he'd created from the last hour of pacing and set his sights on the edge of the camp. If Draconicon wasn't going to send him off on a proper hunt, he'd find someone to kill himself.

After all, there had to be paladins somewhere nearby. The sanctimonious assholes were always somewhere nearby.

Equilo, Rhecla, Keikal, Avieal, mother, father... He clasped his arm, but only for a moment, squeezing the bandages as he walked off. Another death, soon. Another kill.

It didn't take long to leave the camp. No one had stopped him. No one ever stopped an 'officer,' as the black footprint on his chest proclaimed him to be. If someone happened to be in his way, they moved, and if anyone looked at him funny...well, they looked away fast enough, turning their heads in a different direction as he made his way out of the lines of tents.

He'd never left the camp by any means but teleportation before, so the winding path down from the dusty plateau surprised him. It was easy enough to follow, well-fortified with different barricades and checkpoints, but it wasn't what he'd expected. He'd thought that the camp had been somewhere else, closer to the flat plains on the eastern side of the Theocracy, or perhaps somewhere hilly, near the center.

He had never expected it to be located in a desert.

The sand blew all around him, forcing him to pull the hood of his cloak back down to keep it out of his eyes and mouth. Even with the wraps around his face, he still felt the abrasive little specks, and he grumbled. A little magic would have -

But he didn't have that. Never had, and never would.

He stomped through the sand, pushing through the dust and the wind. There had to be something out here. There had to be some sort of paladin or some sort of church lackey that had wandered off of the beaten path, and when he found them...

Thirty minutes passed, and he found no one. A crossbow bolt had been wasted on a lizard that had startled him, but the little beast turned out to be nothing. He took the bolt and wandered on.

An hour passed, and he was barely in view of the plateau anymore. Looking over his shoulder, he could scarcely see the rise that marked where it was, let alone anything that might have been on it. No signs of anyone, living or dead, this far out from it. But there had to be something. His rage burned, and he kept walking.

Two hours, three hours, four hours, before he finally collapsed. He rolled down the side of a sand dune, unable to stop himself as he spun round and round. It was only when he reached the base that he came to a stop, left staring up towards the sky. The sun burned down on him, and he glared back at it, considering it as much of an enemy as anything else in his life.

He didn't get up. Not right away, at least. Instead, he closed his eyes, and let out a scream.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

It rang out through the sands and the winds, carried away from it him almost before he could hear himself. He screamed again, and again, each time with more rage than the last, and each time making his lungs ache.

The white dragon wept as the final scream left his lips, turning his head to keep from scalding himself as it happened. The sun burned down on him, and his tears turned to steam before they even hit the sand, but they kept coming, sliding from his eyes.

They have to die...have to die...they killed everyone, and I have to get all of them...

That was the only way that his family could rest easy. It wasn't enough that the paladins would be removed from power when the Order moved against them, if it ever did. It wouldn't be enough for the Church of the Sun to be struck down and removed from the ranks of power. No. All the paladins had done, all the work that they had taken against mages, against his family, had to be paid for, and they could only pay for that in blood.

Havok rolled himself onto all fours, feeling the weight of his weapons, and feeling the tightness of the bandages on his arm. He squeezed it again, feeling the slight raised marks of the brands on his scales. Names. Names of his family, fading over the years, burnt back into him so that they would never fade completely. He would never let them be forgotten.

As he stood, the slightest sound caught his ear. A tugging on the fabric, a bit of the cloth coming loose. Not quite a rip, but the next thing to it. The white dragon froze, adjusting his legs and his arms ever so gently.

No...no damage...can't damage...can't lose... His breath came shakily as he stood up, reaching down to the hem. It had been down there. He knew that the threads were getting old, that they were coming loose, but he didn't think -

No, no damage. No tears yet. The repairs he'd put on the robe were still keeping together. He let out a breath that he hadn't realized he'd been holding, and realized that he was shaking.

Stop it, he told himself, and slowly his body obeyed. It stopped shivering, stopped shaking, but his heart still quivered. Too close. Too close to losing one of his few memories, few keepsakes of his family. If his robe was damaged much more...He shuddered. He didn't want to lose it. Didn't want to lose them.

The sand shifted to his left, a sound more than a sight, and he turned.

"No paladin...but you'll do."

Havok started smiling as he saw the creature that had emerged from a cave beneath the sand. It was a predatory thing, he knew that much. It seemed to alternate between walking on all fours and walking on its hind legs, with a soft, tawny fur that seemed to run from its neck to its two tails. Long claws, nearly the size of daggers, pushed past its fingers, and curved fangs pushed past its lips.

He had no idea what it was, but he knew a predator when he saw it. This was something that he could kill without guilt.

The creature leaped at him, little more than a blur on the wind, but he had been ready. He ducked to the side, blocking the first claw slice with his metal gauntlets, turning the blow to the side before sliding past it.

Before he could strike, it rolled across the sand, the claws leaving deep furrows in the sliding ground. It came around, facing him on all fours, hackles raised and teeth bared as it growled.

The dragon smirked, pulling a couple of daggers from his belt. He spun them in his hands, working his way back and forth on tiptoe. It was easy to keep that balance, and he knew that he'd need to move fast if the creature was as quick as it looked.

And it was. It leaped and slashed, making him block with his gauntlets as much as with the daggers. It scored a line of red along his cheek, and he sliced several lines in return across its chest before they pulled apart again, his breath coming faster as he realized how strong it was. Very, very strong, powerful enough to pin him if it got the right angle. And if that happened...well, his armor didn't reach his throat, and he doubted that it would be stupid enough to go for something else.

Havok quickly pulled the release pin on his cloak, letting it flutter down to the sand. No way was he getting that -

The creature moved again, faster than he could keep up with. This time it caught him on the arm, ripping through the bandages on his upper arm. He gasped, knowing it had touched one of the brands.

It followed up with a cuff to the side of his head, almost slapping him with those clawed paws. The blow was hard enough to send him falling to the ground, his head spinning from the impact. He groaned, throwing himself into a roll. Sand erupted from where he had been laying, falling over him and elsewhere, but he'd managed to avoid impact.

He got to his feet just in time. Claws came for him, scraping across his chest and leaving more lines of red before he ducked back.

You're faster than any paladin, that's for sure...I hope you're ready to die...

Havok ducked side to side, waiting for his opening, taking the hits when he had to and dodging when he could. The creature gave him few enough chances. It was fast, like a demon, and seemed intent on his death. It was half luck that had kept him alive this long, but -

There! It swung too far, overbalancing. Not much, just an inch or two, but enough. He lunged forward, plunging his daggers into its neck. He felt the blood spurt, hot and thick around his fingers, and ripped the blades back out, leaping back a few paces in case the creature still had any fight left in it.

No, no it didn't. It managed a weak swipe that didn't even complete before it fell to the ground, panting as blood flowed out of the sides of its neck, staining the sand.

Havok panted, catching his breath. Only now, at the end of the battle, did he feel how dizzy he was, how...how on fire his sides felt. He slid down to his knees, shaking, trembling, only a death grip on his daggers keeping them from falling into the sand.

Cloak...

He turned, crawling across the sand to his brother's robe. Altered, yes, made into a cloak, but his brother's. It was...it was his...the only thing he had left of him...

Just before he could grab it, the wind caught it. It billowed off of the sand, and Havok's eyes went wide.

"NO!"

He leaped for it, but it was too late. The wind carried it away, pulling it up the sides of the dune. The white dragon leaped to his feet, only to stumble and trip from his wounds, his exhaustion. He chased after it with everything that he had left, trying, straining to reach it, but the wind was too fast. Up, up, up it went, over the top of the dune.

Just when he swore it would be gone forever, a blue hand reached up over the top of the dune and grabbed it. Havok kept running, his head dripping with sweat as he pushed himself harder and harder.

At the top of the sandy hill, he saw two things. The first was a nearly naked two-toned blue dragon, wearing the same footprint on his chest as Havok did. The second, and more important, was that the officer had a hold of his cloak.

He held out his hand...and fainted.

Judging by the sun when he woke up, Havok guessed that he'd been unconscious for about an hour. He groaned as he pulled himself up, and reached for his hood...which wasn't there.

My cloak. My cloak!

He panted as he fumbled around for it, reaching through the sand and dragging his fingers through it for perhaps a minute before he saw the cloth. He looked up, seeing it dangling from the hand of the dragon he'd seen earlier, and grabbed it, pulling it to his chest and holding it to himself, cradling it as he almost collapsed in relief.

"I'm guessing that's pretty important to you."

Havok nodded slightly, too tightly wrapped up in the worry of losing the cloak. Damaging it would have been bad enough, but losing it...

Even he felt the cracks at the edges of his mind, at that. He didn't want to think about how bad things would be if he had lost it.

Slowly, he wrapped it around him again, taking some relief from the layer between his scales and the sun. He patted his forehead with the hood, soaking up some of the sweat that had popped out in his panic, and took a better look at his...companion.

The fact that he wore the footprint - and the...other garment - of the Order was sufficient to tell him that he was safe here. At least, as safe as he would be anywhere, and safer than in a good number of locations. But he hadn't had the chance to meet with this person yet, and he didn't know what to think.

After all, what sort of dragon wandered the desert like this?

"Who are you?"

"I'm Teryx. One of Draconicon's...followers, if you want to call it that."

"Hmmph. Forced."

"You could definitely call it that."

Havok nodded, looking away. Another one of those people that the Order had conscripted, rather than getting as a volunteer. He'd heard a number of stories about that, from a number of different mages.

At least he had joined...willingly enough. Something for him, he supposed.

"And you're Havok, aren't you?"

"Mmm."

"I....heard a few things about you. Before Draconicon sent me to go find you, I mean."

"Can't have heard much."

"I heard that you lost your family."

"Lots of people lost their family."

"Most people didn't hold them in their arms as they did."

Havok froze, staring straight ahead. He hadn't...did the dragon share that?

"Most people weren't saved at the last second by their sister, and had to see them sacrifice their life to save you. Once to protect you, once to heal you."

"..."

"It's been hard, hasn't it?"

"How do you know?"

"Draconicon. The...master...is in our heads. He sees...well...everything. He told me what was in yours. And he'll probably tell you what is in mine."

He growled under his breath, stabbing a few fingers through the sand. The fact that the 'master' had been rooting around in his head...those were his memories. It didn't matter what they were, they were his. He could barely remember them; what gave someone else the right to go rummaging through them, making them worse?

"I didn't ask him. He told me. And...and I'm sorry that you have to go through that. It's worse than most of us."

"Yeah? What's your story, then?"

"It's...not as bad as yours."

"Obviously."

The silence stretched on between the pair of them, with Havok shouting in the back of his head. He had no idea if Draconicon could hear him across this much distance, even through the mark, but he was going to give that damn dragon an earful. How dare he do this? How dare he share the past? How...fucking...dare he?

Again, there was no response. He punched the sand again, and started to get up.

Teryx, however, took him by the hand and gently squeezed. Havok turned, looking back down at him, and arched an eyebrow.

"What?"

"Take a minute. You...you're in worse shape than you might think."

"I have to find them."

"You won't find any paladins around here. We're technically outside the borders, deep in the desert."

"There's always paladins."

"If there were any out here, trust me, we'd have bigger problems. Please...please, just sit down for a moment. At least have some water."

"Water..."

Desert. Water. No wonder he felt dizzy. Havok sat down, doing his best not to make it look like a complete fumbling mess, before nodding.

"Water...would be good."

The other dragon nodded, and held out his hand. A gesture or two later, and the air was filled with moisture. A final gesture pulled it into a floating orb, swirling with water and dripping towards the sand. It seemed to put off mist, and he realized that it must have been rather cold to be doing that in the desert.

As it floated to his lips, he leaned in, drinking from it. It was perhaps the coldest, freshest water that he'd had in...in ten years...

He turned away from it, but not before getting enough to still some of his lightheaded feelings. It was more than enough for his memories.

Whether Teryx understood that or not, the dragon did let the spell fade as soon as he turned away. Havok started to get to his feet again, but stopped, taking in what the other dragon had said. It was...it was something to be considered, that he was in a desert. That he was outside the Theocracy.

Outside the Theocracy. That was somewhere he never thought he'd be.

He turned around, slowly making a full circle as he looked around him. Even the plateau where the camp was located was no longer in sight. Instead, all he could see were sand hills, dunes that stretched for as far as the eye could see. A deep red covered the sand, not quite crimson, and not quite a sunny red. Instead, it was...metallic, almost, like a deep bronze. It was everywhere, inescapable, unavoidable.

There was literally nothing else. Not enough space for a man to hide, not enough life to support anything. There was truly...truly...nothing.

And it terrified him.

His breath started coming faster and his hands started shaking. There was...nothing. Nothing but the need, but the darkness that he'd lived in for so long. Nobody around, nobody to fight, no enemies. It was just him...just him and...

What...what do I do...

He swayed back and forth as he realized that there was nothing left. Nothing that he could lean on, no purpose that he could imagine for himself. Out here, in the middle of nowhere, with nobody to threaten him and no paladins, he had no targets. He had no...no...

What is the point?

He couldn't keep his balance anymore, and slipped back to the sand dune. He almost rolled away before Teryx caught him, holding him by the shoulder. His normal reaction to throw that grip off didn't even come to him, too deep in his own shock.

What could he do? What...what was...wrong with him? He...

What did he want?

Even that question didn't have a good answer. He wanted to kill. He wanted to slaughter. He wanted to break the paladins and hurt them, burn them. Burn them all the way to the ground. But without being able to do that...he didn't want anything else. He couldn't think of anything else. He...He...

"You're broken inside, aren't you?"

Havok nodded, unable to think of anything else.

"You have been lashing out for years. Hitting things, hurting things, because it's the only thing you can do to keep your family alive inside."

He nodded, again. It was more true than the other dragon knew. When he was fighting, he had a reason. When he was killing, he could see the faces of his family in his head. They came, reminding him of why he did it. Why he fought. Why he...killed. And burned. And destroyed everything that had to do with them.

That hand pulled him back, and Havok didn't fight it. He didn't fight it when he felt a pair of arms wrap around him. In truth, he barely felt them. All he could feel was the emptiness around him. The dark, dark emptiness that seemed to go on forever, with nothing around that he could fill it with.

He closed his eyes. Maybe...maybe it was time...for it to end...

"No. It's far from time for it to end."

Oh. So now the dragon 'master' deigned to speak. Havok snorted.

"Snort if you like, but it's you that put yourself into this mess. The paladins started the killing, but if you think that you're empty right now, think of how it would be at the end of the war. You've seen what it's like, when there's nothing there for you, when there's nothing around. Think of how you'd feel at the end of the war, when the Church was cast down. Think of how empty the world would be, knowing that you couldn't even be sent to a place where you could keep killing."

He tensed up, the thought almost too terrifying to indulge, but it came despite his best efforts. The idea that the Theocracy was now a place that had no paladins, that the Church of the Sun had been destroyed...

He'd had the thought earlier, but he hadn't had the context. The emptiness. The vast, dark, lonely emptiness...

Havok would have cracked then, were it not for the arms holding him. He opened his eyes a sliver, then, seeing the dragon holding him, seeing the way that Teryx was letting him shake and quake in his arms. It...it was something...something that he hadn't felt in a very, very long time. And there...there were words. Words that spilled from those lips.

"...alright...It'll be alright, Havok. This will end, soon enough...and after revenge, perhaps we can all find a way to heal."

Heal. He'd never even thought about that. The idea of killing, of burning, of hurting, of just remembering and living had been all that he'd thought about for so long. The idea that something might be wrong with him...well, that had never even crossed his mind.

"It never does. We are so assured of our purpose that we follow it with no thought of what it does to us. But every action comes with a cost. Some so small that we never see it, and others so large that we are consumed by it. I know the signs of the latter. I live with the consequences of the latter."

"He's right, Havok. There's ways to live with what we do. But they need people around. To help you in the task...and help you after."

The white dragon shuddered again, hating the fact that he was so close to crying, so close to breaking down. He had been surviving for ten years, hunting paladins while others had been hiding. Luring them to him so that they would die...

Luring them to him so that he...

He...

So I might...die too...

It was a miracle that he hadn't broken down completely yet, but it came so close with that thought. Memories of old fights, of the way that he had hunted the paladins and taken so many risks, came flooding in. The times when he'd been so open to death, so reckless, that he had taken wounds that should have killed him, and only hadn't because of a grateful mage that he'd saved, or because of some lucky twist at the last second. He'd never cared. All that mattered was death...

Whether his or the paladins.

It scared him...and he finally broke. He cried, silently, in Teryx's arms, and - in a strange way - in the arms of another dragon.

#

They returned to the camp some time later, and Havok was back to normal. He was silent, other than his immediate request to be teleported to where he could hunt. His only change was the fact that he asked for Teryx to come with him.

Draconicon blinked at that, and looked at the blue dragon.

"I suppose that you are free to go along with him, if you like, but it would be a dangerous operation. Even with Havok's skills."

"I know."

Teryx nodded.

"But he shouldn't be alone. Not now."

Havok grumbled. He shouldn't have broken down out there, even in that relative privacy. Doubtless, the pair of them would see him as some mad dragon that they needed to nursemaid between his killing sessions. It would have been better to hold it in, even if he couldn't think of how he would have done that with how bad things had gotten. Even the memory of the emptiness around him - and worse, in him - sent shivers down his spine.

Still...

Now he knew that it was there. He knew what was waiting for him, at the end of the road. That void, that darkness, would swallow him up. And if he was gone...

He squeezed his arm as the other dragons talked, shaking his head. The creature he'd fought had cut through one name. It was too close to losing them forever, and he would need to brand that back on when he could. But at the same time...if he lost himself...then the legacy of his family, the memory of them, would be gone as well. And that was too high a price to pay.

"Well...I'll allow it. This time."

Havok nodded.

"But only because there's an important assignment that you have to finish. Halley is embedded pretty deep where I'm sending you, and if there's an extraction needed, I need you both there. Havok to cover the retreat, and Teryx to make sure that everyone can get out properly."

"So...not allowed to kill everything."

"Not everything. But I do want you to tend to a number of paladins there...and perhaps a hierarch, if he's visiting."

The white dragon smiled. It wasn't much, wasn't quite what he was hoping for. It sounded more like an assassination mission than a hunt...but it would do. It would do quite nicely, for something new, for a change. And change...change was good for him now. He kept telling himself that.

As Draconicon started describing their mission - something to do with the different soldiers that were garrisoned at their target location, and the investigations of several paladin officers into the population - he looked over at the map. The Theocracy spread far and wide, and the markers for their paladin garrisons were spread nearly as far. Havok imagined each marker going up in flame, and slowly smiled.

By the time he was done, the emptiness ahead would be filled with the funeral pyres of the paladin order. For the memory of his family...and for the lives of everyone that would come after.

The End