Homecoming Disappointments

Antoine needed a drink. He sat at the bar beside his partner, Percy, who wasted time talking with a tavern girl. Her mundane questions were like all others about Chasseurs. How many monsters have you killed? What did you hunting now? Is it scary? Antoine rued the conversation with how desolate the tavern was. Had chatter drowned out the conversation, he’d survive it, but with ten people hitherto around the tavern’s neutral quarters, exhaustion plaguing him, he felt he might die.
Wind shot through the bar. No sooner, a boisterous hackling of soldiers in blue. Corterchmen. Antoine stiffened. He turned back to his pale porridge that barely sufficed for a meal. His stomach rumbled missing the stews of Mondruhe’s kitchen. He swept his spoon through it’s watery contents waiting for Percy to stop talking to the girl.
“Was it hard?” the girl whispered.
A blush colored her cheeks. Her hand on Percy’s shoulder while she smiled.
“No, we handled it quite quickly,” Percy said patting Antoine’s shoulder.
Antoine sighed. Really, Percy? He thought. It wasn’t that she a buxom girl. Fair skinned and dark haired. That was quite a beauty in Orlogne. Women often preferred Percy though. They drooled over his warm tan skin, hazel eyes, and the loose brown curls which framed his gentle features. At times, it annoyingly got in their way of getting out of places on time, not that Percy would notice.
“You killed it?” the girl asked.
Her eyes brightened with a faint smirk. The barkeep leaned across the bar to whisper in her ear.
“Idelle, leave the Chasseurs be. They work in shadows you don’t want to tread,” the barkeep warned.
Antoine raised a brow looking between them both.
“Perhaps I like the shadows. Shadows pay well,” she said.
Antoine laughed at that. “Well, you should ask him then. He’s the one who shot it dead.”
Percy elbowed Antoine again. Elder save me, I’m not interested in this girl, he thought. He shoveled the porridge to his gullet. When an ache shot up his shoulder blade, he clutched his chest a bit. The damn beast in their fight whipped its tail into his chest making him hit against the cave wall. Thanks to an overpriced sorcerer they frequented, they were fine, but the ghostly aches made it hard to breathe. Percy had to finish it off with a shot to it’s head.
“I heard your lot is scarce now?” the barkeep asked.
Antoine nodded. “We’re still here.”
“Those mercenaries came in today. I guess they were off hunting that Rohland boy. I wonder, why aren’t you all doing that?”
Ugh, mercenaries. Antoine always hated them. He saw the group sitting together in their garish garbs, and odd gadgets hanging on their hips. The one leaned back, his legs propped up on a table flipping a gold coin through his fingers. He winked at Antoine making him scoff.
“A Rohland? In Orlogne? I was told they never leave their rose garden,” Percy asked.
“And I hear the Bastard is handsome like a fey,” Idelle said.
“Poison is sweet and pretty, and Rohlands are all poison,” the tavern keep warned. “Don’t the Chasseurs hunt sorcerers too? Why aren’t you lot trying to find the bastard? Maybe this war would end sooner, and I’d get better business.”
“We avoid hunting people,” Percy said.
“That task alone is for conscripters and mercenaries, my friend,” Antoine said.
“What about those Ushermen we arrested,” Percy whispered.
The blasphemers were one group of zealots Antoine couldn’t deal with. They went about the Empire shaving their heads and donning red uniforms crazed with delusions of killing death. Their hero would come and do it. Surely, they were a group they often had to fight due to their penchant for human sacrifice. Antoine half wished the Emperor would be stricter with them. Perhaps then, the Chasseurs wouldn’t have to busy themselves with cleaning up their messes anymore.
Percy kept talking all about it with the tavern wench and about gossip when Antoine noticed he Corterchmen were huddled in their booth as they whispered. They’re gaze’s darting between themselves and the bar. Laughter sprang up. Antoine nudged Percy.
“What?” Percy asked.
Antoine signaled back to the Corterchmen behind them. That was one less issue he wanted to deal with. 
“De Luc is waiting for us.”
Percy leaned forward. “Can you try to have fun? We just finished a mission. A mission done well. Get a drink, talk to a girl, come on.”
“Not with the shits in the corner. Percy, you know the drill.”
Antoine slid off his seat and fixed his gray uniform on himself. He dropped three silver livres onto the counter, and he packed his weapons onto himself. 
“It’ll cost you a gold livre,” the bar keep said.
“Ack, beer is not that expensive, be nice,” Percy said.
The barkeep held out his hand. “I know your people are cheap, Suhayi. But I’m not.”
Percy scoffed scrounging up gold.
“I’m Aysalian, by the way,” he corrected.
Antoine growled digging at least ten silver coins to equate to the gold livre. They already were sucked dry from the Sorcerer for healing and now this bar keep was like a vampire to their coffers. Damn cheap bastard.
“Going so soon?” Idelle said grasping Percy’s arm.
The soldiers went silent as Antoine heaved the Tatzelwurm’s weighty head off the floorboards. Left in it’s place was a splotch of purplish blood.
“Do we really need to leave?” Percy asked.
“Yes.”
Percy waved goodbye to Idelle as Antoine strode towards the door.
“Back to fight fey and gnomes?” one of the soldiers said in Corterch.
Antoine turned his gaze from them to Percy. The least he could do is pretend he didn’t speak the language. His fists tightened. Percy bowed his head. 
“Come on, you’re right,” Percy whispered.
Fey and gnomes. As if they’ve fought anything of worth? Antoine scoffed. Even though he felt like punching all of them, a fight was better avoided, so Antoine grasped the door. He pulled it forward only for a soldier to push the door closed. Irritation was starting to boil up.
“The fuck…” Antoine began.
“Tell me, I hear in Orlogne, men fight pixies and gnomes instead of going into real battles,” the Corterchman said. “Out wasting the Emperor’s gold.”
“We don’t want any trouble,” Percy said in their tongue.
Wasting the royal brat’s gold? Ha! Antoine nearly laughed. A grin creeping on his face as he turned back to Percy. The emperor did waste his gold on idiotic parties and idiotic wars, but not on the Chasseurs. Why, Antoine wondered if he even cared about their order? He glanced between the head in his hand and Percy. He raised up the burlap sack to the soldier.
“Take a look then on what the Emperor wasted his gold on,” Antoine said. Blood soaked through the fabric onto his hand while the soldier reached his hand towards the fabric. “It’s just a fey. Like you said.”
The Chasseurs hunted four types of cases. Fey, which allergic to iron; accursed, which were allergic to silver and were created by curses; verdrahlt, which were unclassified monsters; and lastly, rogue sorcerers. The tatzelwurm was no easy fey to fight. They were large and burrowed in caves. This ones only issue is that it chose an active mine instead of an abandoned one.
Percy groaned leaning back before straightening himself.
“Antoine, please. He’s just a kid,” Percy began.
That alone antagonized the Corterchman to open it up. He recoiled back at the sight of the beaten Tatzelwurm’s feline and reptilian head peaked out. It’s whiskers bent and nostrils slashed from where Antoine cut it.
“What the fuck is that!” he snapped.
“A Tatzelwurm. They’re territorial so it killed seven miners and two civilians when it settled in a mine. This is what your Emperor’s gold is wasted upon,” Antoine snapped.
He turned back to the door grasping the handle to open it. In seconds, he was clutched by the collar. His weight was pulled forward, and he dropped the head to shirk the soldier off. Fury nearly blinded him.
“You’re a Châtelaine?” he asked wide eyed.
The room stilled. Silence spreading while people gawked. A Châtelaine? I thought they were gone, were just a few things he heard whispered. Antoine grasped the door, and before he could open it, the solder placed his foot right in front of it.
“By the Elder, you are! Aren’t you? What are you doing here? I thought you were at the camp,”
Antoine furrowed a brow. The camp? Why would I bother being with the Colonel? I’m a Chasseur not a soldier. Percy pried the door open and snaked out. His hand reached in and clutched Antoine’s coat. In seconds, he was dragged out. He held the door tightly keeping himself halfway in.
“What are you talking about?” Antoine asked the soldiers.
“We were called to escort a Châtelaine at the camp to Tressaint. We thought you might’ve been the Black Chasseur?”
One of his buddies, hissed: idiot. Antoine didn’t have a response. He only shook his head.
“No, that bastard’s dead.”
Antoine raised a brow. I was never with Colonel Leutzinger. Before he could say another word, Percy tugged him out into the cobble of Norbourg. It was a city they frequented on missions. A quiet town with pigeons and staircases mixed through it. The chatter of folk and the light playing of instruments could be heard down the street. Antoine brushed dust off himself looking to his dear horse, Liesel. She was once black but her white grew all across turning her into a speckled beauty. He cooed at her pulling out a carrot to feed her with.
“You know every time someone makes a comment, you don’t have to respond?” Percy said.
“And what would you have said?” Antoine said.
“Nothing. I don’t start arguments with people we have no business arguing with.”
“Well, those idiots made it our business.”
“Eh, you made it our business. What about that woman? You’re business should have been with her.”
Antoine scoffed mounting his horse. As if I’d get with some stranger, or even be interested. The door to the tavern flew open, and one of the mercenaries sauntered out. He flipped his gold coin at Percy and stood with his hands don his hips.
“You’re the great Chasseurs’ son?” he asked.
The man had an odd accent. Strange enough that it made even Percy pinch his eyes, and he spoke seven languages.
“I am,” Antoine said.
The mercenary smiled. “Have you Chasseurs gotten any news of a sorcerer that has green flame?”
Antoine shook his head and held his hand up to Percy. 
“Head west and north. Far from here,” Antoine said. He turned on his horse. “Let’s go.” 
With that, they departed the tavern destined for Mondruhe. They left the city in minutes to traverse the roads till they turned towards a grove of pine. Up from that they road towards a wall of ivy hung over an outcropped stone through which they passed into a tunnel that opened to a canyon partnered with looming ice capped mountains scaling above it. Percy rode his horse up close to Antoine’s whilst he pouted. His mind still stuck in the tavern.
“Who do you think that mercenary was after?” he asked.
“Who cares? Besides, what were those soldiers talking about?” Antoine said.
“I doubt it’s anything bad. Perhaps one of your cousins joined the military?”
Châtelaines knew better than to join the emperor’s damned military. Antoine would beat any of his cousins bloody if they did. He’d faint if Lorraine even so mentioned it.
“I’ll ask Roethlisberger when she gets back. She always seemed to know the gossip before anyone else,” Antoine said.
They proceeded to gossip as Mondruhe reared its head up the road. The fort itself, Percy once noted, looked sculpted out of the mountainside. Antoine remembered his father saying that sorcerers had worked on engineering the fort. That alone was clear from the quicksilver (a silver-steel alloy) spinning spikes lining the crenelations and battlements. Their horses trotted over the green stagnant moat underneath the drawbridge into the courtyard where the other horses were kept. They passed to the stables, where they dismounted.
“Well, time to hope we can actually rest,” Antoine groaned. “I doubt it, but maybe I should try hoping.”
“Don’t jinx us, Antoine! I’m exhausted. Five missions is more than enough for this month. We’re not even two weeks in either,” Percy stammered.
Antoine shrugged as they went up steps into the dark, mildew reeking, halls of the low fort. The ceilings dripped with condensation, wooden pales set beneath them to catch the water. When they reached the lifts, they opened up to two vertical tunnels leading upward to where the main structure’s innards lay. They stepped onto a metal platform with a quicksilver lattice surrounding it, and a lever to the side. Percy heaved the lever up prompting it to shake and give a loud rusty groan. Antoine padlocked the door shut as it began to rise.
When the whole lift stopped and the lever bowed down, Antoine looked to who stopped it. On the other side, like a behemoth, Dufresne pushed the door in and bowed his tall self through the threshold. Antoine shifted closer to Percy.
“Châtelaine… Laclaire,” he nodded.
“Dufresne,” Percy said.
Antoine remembered seeing the dunce for the first time. He came up the humbling steps like an idiot asking for directions demanding to see Mr. De Luc. The only reason anyone paid any mind to him was the sheer fact that he was built like some giant from myth: thick muscles, broad shoulders, and Percy, as tall as he was, was drawfed like a sapling next to an old spruce.
“Done with another mission?” Dufresne asked.
His voice was gruff and deep. It made Antoine shiver.
Percy nodded. “Tatzelwurm. Just heading to De Luc’s office to see where she plans to send us next.”
“Out for a record?”
Antoine scoffed. “No.”
“My person record was twenty. I believe. Back when I was younger and limber like you both. You could say I had the trappings of a Black Chasseurs.”
Why would Antoine want to do the most missions in a month, that sounded miserable. With injuries taken into account and the cost to heal them, they’d go over their budget. Which Gods forbid they did that to heal. That seemed worse than Idelle’s stupid questions. 
“Tell her that I’ll have some Chasseurs ask around about Favager and Roethlisberger for her please,” Dufresne said.
Antoine’s eyes narrowed. What does he mean by that? He thought. Percy laughed while scratching his neck: “Oh… well, yeah, I’m sure she understands, we’ll make sure to do that for you.”
Once the lift reached another stop, Antoine lowered the lever halting it entirely. He grasped Percy by his shoulders and pushed him out as soon as possible. The lifted shook as it rose with Dufresne and they stood in silence before knowing he was fully gone.
“We’ll make sure to do that for you, Dufresne,” Antoine mocked.
Percy glared at him. “Is being polite a crime?”
“To him.”
“He just doesn’t like you because you’re an ass, and you told him to choke on balls.”
“Because he should. What was he even talking about? I thought Roethlisberger would be here by now?”
Percy shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Together they went through gray halls past rooms locked shut and empty where not even the Eldesses bothered to upkeep. Upon passing the mail room, Antoine retraced his steps heading to his mail box. The wooden drawers surrounded a barred counter where the Messengers worked in their chicken coop. He peered beyond it seeing Eisele Roethlisberger’s cubicle was still empty. 
“Gods, what trouble is she in now,” Antoine said opening his box.
Percy peered in and asked the messengers about it. No one knew anything and those gossipers would’ve known something. Antoine opened his box only to close it seeing nothing. Which was a shame, he wanted to hear from Lorraine. They went up to De Luc’s office despite that. It was better to get it over with. They spied the empty hot springs neighboring the foot through the slotted windows of the staircase. It was even more enticing considering sweat and dirt caked their skin. That and purple tatzelwurm blood. Percy pushed him up a few more steps as they planned a visit there.
It was ruined soon enough by a sign on her door saying: At Eldant for prayer. They groaned. It couldn’t be simple. They went into the main courtyard where new recruits were entering through the main gate scaling up the “Humbling” steps as they dubbed them. They were brutal. A stone staircase that all recruits went up their first time to Mondruhe. Percy and Dufresne had done it. Collapsing on the earth. Antoine own hometown was on the route. Cazetrou. He was so used to it, it was like second nature. To the right were the barracks, forge, and armory. To the left was the Eldant where pens of animals and crop patches surrounded. Beside it, was the infirmary attached to the small temple bearing only two tall spires set with a circular stained glass window in the front that looked like a blooming chrysanthemum fitted with a motley of mixed colors.
Antoine hauled black wooden doors open and let Percy in first. The tender haze of pine scented incense was illuminated by lifted sunroofs casting white light alongside the clustered leagues of candles posted on the window sills. Antoine prayed when it was night between the lacquered rows lining the sides. He tended to sit near the front and if not there, then to the six marble statues guarding the back behind a wooden lectern. Their likenesses were colored by the stain glass behind them. All six of the gods. Idelgar, Orelda, Venan, Valdis, Lioth, and Morana. All of them together. His eyes stopped at the statue of Venan where a figure clad in dusky gray lifted an incense stick and recited prayers. It was a woman. Pale and slender with curly hair like cream silk tucked neatly in a long Corterch styled braid.
“Is that a new Chasseur?” Percy whispered.
Antoine approached noting. When Antoine came beside her, she didn’t turn. Her gray eyes rather narrowed in on the barley stalk she laid before Venan.
“What are you doing here?” Antoine asked.
“A mission. I assume, you’ve just finished yours?” she said.
Vera straightened the layers of her vesture.
“That didn’t answer my question,” Antoine said.
Vera sighed. “I’m here to meet someone.”
“Um… who are you?” Percy asked.
Antoine sighed. “She’s um… well…”
“Mrs. Vera Pelletier-Châtelaine, Black Chasseur Pelletier as I go,” Vera said.
Percy’s eyes went wide scanning her over as did Antoine. Why isn’t she wearing her uniform? Shouldn’t she be in black? 
“Mrs. you say? I didn’t know Nick had a wife.”
Fuck, Antoine thought. He wanted to crawl out his skin as Vera pointed to Antoine.
“No, this is my husband who I’m finding out never mentioned me. How wonderful, and you are?”
“Percival Laclaire.”
“Thank you, Mr. Laclaire.”
For a moment, they stood in complete silence. Antoine wanted nothing more than to be buried six feet under. They only glanced between each other.
“De Luc is downstairs. She thought it best we meet there,” Vera explained.
Antoine raised a brow. “We’re on this mission together?”
“Yes. Her orders.”
Vera turned on her heel promptly placing her hat on. Antoine tried to process the situation and the motions of it. They followed her to the basement that reeked of wet rust. The door was dark brown with warping wood. It’s iron handle waiting to be pulled while wall sconces barely lit the basement.
“What is this even about?” Antoine asked.
“You’ll learn,” Vera said.

Antoine settled into the room still lost. He nearly forgot to bow to his Captain, Clemence de Luc. Upon his first impression, she walked down a line of fresh-faced new recruits, stiff lipped, with her hair fixed tightly into two Corterch styled braids. Her pale face was a handsome one. Sharp and pointed with a long groove stemming from her chin though her face like a lightning bolt to her brow. He’d never seen underneath her red eye patch. She’d changed it recently, the emblem of the Chasseurs stitched into fabric in silver.
“How was the Tatzelwurm?” De Luc said.
“The workers and families were happy,” Percy said. “Though, you can expect a bill from Sorcerer Bannermann.” 
De Luc’s smile dropped, and she furrowed her brows. 
“Gods help me, what happened?” she asked quietly.
Antoine shook his head praying he might stop. Rather, Percy pointed and said: “The Tatzelwurm’s tail whipped his chest, so he broke a few ribs. We got him healed and well, but we could use more livres if that’s possible.”
Vera shifted in her seat adjusting her old uniform. She sat properly with a leg crossed. but she was leaned forward. Her brows furrowed. Antoine narrowed his eyes at her. He cocked his head towards her.
“You were hurt?” she asked.
“It was nothing,” he said.
“This is your wife,” Percy said pointing to Vera. “And she’s a Black Chasseur?”
Antoine drew a sharp breath. A headache burrowed into his head like a worm with each question tossed by him between the three. Already, his head was awash with voices at times. Odd thoughts and dreams, he could only push away for moments at a time. He ran a hand over his face.
“Why—Why is she here!” he stammered. 
De Luc raised her brows as the silence permeated the room. Her lips preened with a smile. Twitching before pursing together. She grasped a clutch of papers and shuffled in her seat with a rather self-satisfied expression on her face. De Luc sighed. 
“Why, she’s visiting her husband,” she said.
Antoine rolled his eyes. “The real reason.”
De Luc squinted her eyes and nodded. “You’re correct that is our official reason, to which we’re going to add that she was tending to her injured husband. That’s far more believable. Romantic even.”
Vera and Antoine both flinched from that. At least they could agree upon that. So what is this even about? Lying about her being here. It can’t be anything good. Thereafter, De Luc divvied her papers between the three of them. Then neatly prepped her own stack. She flipped the page over and sighed. Antoine raised a brow. Before he could even read it though, Percy seemed to have identified it’s core for him.
“We’re investigating comrades?” Percy asked.
Comrades? Antoine leaned towards Percy’s papers seeing that amongst them was Roethlisberger and Favager’s names written in the paper. He raised a brow. He flipped over his items then skimming what content was inside. He froze upon seeing 
“Yes, an incident occurred surrounding the two in which Favager remains missing but Roethlisberger was returned back to Fort Lachaud heavily injured and without her partner. She’s refusing to speak in a language anyone can understand, so Percy your mission is rather simple for you,” De Luc explained. “With a Sorcerer Chasseur missing, I’m obliged to recruit a Black Chasseur and since I didn’t want to rouse suspicion, I did bring your wife, Antoine. Which is what we are saying this visit is about if anyone asks questions.”
Antoine groaned. All he wanted was rest. He closed his eyes thinking of the hot spring already. 
“Where was Roethlisberger?” Antoine asked.
“Out east near Kajensee lake. Colonel Leutzinger actually initially requested you for translation. It surprised me, I didn’t know you could read High Riegar,” she said.
“High Riegar?” Percy asked.
Antoine nodded. “My father taught it to me when I was young because I wanted to be lawyer and said I’d need it here. If Leutzinger needed my help, did they capture a nobleman or what is it?”
It wasn’t as useful as they made it seem. His family mainly spoke it because their mother was from Rumistberg in Riegerberg. She said it would be useful for us and their father grew up near nobleman in Orlogne who spoke it. Besides that, it was virtually useless.
“No, it seems to be a victim of some sort of prison as they had no tongue.”
Antoine shuddered. He heard that when they found some prisoners near the border, especially sorcerers, they came back without tongues. That is if they survived the torture alone. Whoever the victim was, he was no ordinary man. 
It made Vera’s presence make sense. With the case so close to the border, a high ranking military official was involved, and a missing Sorcerer Chasseur; he could only imagine what was at stake for them. He had more questions but that would be for another day.
“So what do you want us to do?” Antoine asked. “I’m assuming it’s meant to be covert considering were in a musty basement and we’re masking her presence as a visit to me?”
“Did you just call the Eldant musty?” Vera asked.
“Just it’s basement.”
Antoine sighed looking to the burlap sack on his hip. He presented it to De Luc.
“Well, that’s so much for taking a break,” he muttered.
Percy adjusted his coat. “So what are we to do?”
“Your mission is simple,” De Luc began. She rose up and fixed her coat on herself. They rose with her. She gave a long winded sigh and said: “Find out what happened.”
Antoine looked over to Percy. It’s never simple.