1. Santiago Malik

    Private To Fill the Father's Cup

    Santiago's ears perked up at that. He forced himself to still the ragged bleating of his breath, to listen past the throbbing in his head. A difficult task, that. Arcaeus was a name known to him. One of these supposed "Sons of Sadrias," mere backwater militia riding the coattails of prestige...
  2. Santiago Malik

    Private To Fill the Father's Cup

    To Santiago's eyes the number of bodies might as well have numbered the hundreds, despite logic telling him only dozens took the field in any one spot. It was curiously difficult to parse, harder still to distinguish Legion corpses from Sadrias milita. Beneath the mud, trampled by hoof and by...
  3. Santiago Malik

    Private To Fill the Father's Cup

    Some part of him wondered if he engendered too deep a passivity, if in exercising caution he served merely to alight this group's suspicion. Perhaps he had spoke too quickly, offered too freely what aid he professed. But Santiago was ever a prudent man. Reflection might suggest a measure of...
  4. Santiago Malik

    Private Which Once Shone Before, the Sun

    Sunken fool. A fun turn of phrase, one that prickled against the tides of Malik's memory. It drew a smile from him, full and bellied with laughter that was swiftly drowned beneath the thrum of encroaching storm. The tarps drummed arrhythmic against the mashrabiya. How it howled, beat on beat to...
  5. Santiago Malik

    Private Which Once Shone Before, the Sun

    Plopping a grape into his mouth, Malik chewed cautiously until a wave of sweet juice with a sour kiss washed over his tongue. "Yes, a sojourn," he said, eying the man and doubting that they might be of an age. "I was told little about it, my mother preferring experience as mentor." A shrug. He...
  6. Santiago Malik

    Private Which Once Shone Before, the Sun

    "What weather do we fare?" he asked, looking to the sky. Eddies of sand snuck into clouds, thunderstruck as plumes of purple lightning cackled on a distant horizon; too distant to be entirely relevant, by Malik's reckoning. With the sun beating down, rays blaring hot and sweltering over the...
  7. Santiago Malik

    Private To Fill the Father's Cup

    What did he hope to achieve? Him? “To keep my fucking job.” It left him as a mutter, lipped tight between breaths. The unvarnished truth, insufficient as it was to keep the noose from his neck. At least he managed to speak it in the cadence of a groan. He stilled the chattering of his teeth...
  8. Santiago Malik

    Private Which Once Shone Before, the Sun

    The guide knew enough to palm the gems with a gracious nod and fade away quietly. She made no display of affection, relief, face kept bland but for the flicker of gratitude that crossed her eyes. A job like any other. She slipped into the peripheries, swirling into the billows of dust rising...
  9. Santiago Malik

    Private To Fill the Father's Cup

    Blood dribbled off his lips as he entertained this facsimile of polite conversation. It served him better to spit it out weakly over himself, letting it coat the underside of his chin and collar of his robes. Few details coalesced before the Cleric, his vision occluded by flurry and pain. The...
  10. Santiago Malik

    Private To Fill the Father's Cup

    Santiago was not bequeathed with the time to think—rather, his faculties were quite lacking in that regard, rendering himself incapable of stringing together much in the way of reply beyond a gurgle of muck, spit, and flecks of blood that congealed in his mouth. The pain in his arm was sharp...
  11. Santiago Malik

    Private Under the Father's Eye

    At this hour, Silk would meet with the conceit of the XL Legion: emptied nests, halls patrolled under the pretense of discipline, cursory rather than probing eyes. Villa Sutr, after all, was monolithic, the venerable abode of the garrison in command of the Black Fort. As Santiago had said in...
  12. Santiago Malik

    Private To Fill the Father's Cup

    The redheaded officer smiled a bloody smile as he caught sight of the flares. Two other regiments, reserve outposts for the siege, faired as poorly as his own troops, victim to dissemination at the beck of bad intel. He could imagine their lines, cordoned off by carts and pike, collapsing...
  13. Santiago Malik

    Private Under the Father's Eye

    In losing control of himself, Santiago lost control of the situation. He pressed a heavy thumb into his temple. Maddening. The drone of voices, the earlier pursuit, this entire situation served but as a trial for his patience... the veneer of which had long stripped bare to frustration, given...
  14. Santiago Malik

    Private Under the Father's Eye

    Head swimming, perhaps from the wine, perhaps from hunger, and definitely from the show presented to him, Santiago's patience reached a swift end. "Enough!" he shouted, recoiling from the woman, from both women. Waysira clicked her tongue at him. "Watch yourself, boy. I've no liking to the...
  15. Santiago Malik

    Private To Fill the Father's Cup

    Chaos christened the makeshift battlements. Shouting could be heard from within the encampment: "Ko's hairless balls! Where the fuck are my scouts? Report, legionnaire! Report!" The redheaded officer leapt from the command pavilion, strapping firm his helmet and drawing his blade. What...
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