Jackal Among Snakes

Chapter 654: Alliance of Incompatibility

Argrave stood proudly beside Anneliese as they walked toward the white-haired woman, taking their sweet time. There was a tacit understanding between berserker and non-berserker that they were to meet, amply far from Traugott, to negotiate on the fate of their burgeoning alliance. That ‘alliance’ bit wasn’t tacit—indeed, this might be misconstrued as ‘hostage negotiation.’ Argrave had talked his way out of worse.

Only Argrave and Anneliese went, as the others weren’t so readily capable of resisting the Shadowlander lieutenant. Following behind them, bound in chains of blood, was the rider. He would serve as a witness to the lieutenant, in case she needed someone of her own kind to offer some perspective into the battle Anneliese had with Traugott. Argrave had earned his own perspective on what Anneliese had done. It made him view his role a little more fondly.

“So… you’re telling me you erased him?” Argrave asked her as they walked. “Wiped the whiteboard clean? Sanitized his data? Degaussed his dome? I’m beyond impressed, Anne.”

“I got lucky,” she said simply.

“Oh yeah, sure,” he agreed sarcastically. “Really lucky, spending all that time reviewing the dark things that he’d done. Tons of good fortune in that act. Not deliberate at all. You accidentally studied what he’d done to figure out how to fight against him.”

“I was speaking of the battle,” she interrupted—at once, Argrave could tell she was in no mood for jokes about the subject and made his expression sterner. “My body felt like it moved on its own in that final clash. He might’ve crushed my skull… but he didn’t. I might’ve been forced to kill him outright, yet I subdued him. That was luck.”

“That’s talent,” Argrave disagreed. “Though I suppose you could argue talent is luck. Either way, I think you’re awesome.”

Anneliese nodded, then moved past the issue, questioning, “What do you want to tell that woman?”

“I want to call her mean things until she cries.” Argrave looked ahead. “But I can’t get what I want. I doubt there are words mean enough to break that heart of stone she has. But I imagine you’re asking what I want to achieve here, now that we have the key to it all.”

Argrave looked around the devastated landscape. He wasn’t fond of this place. Gray, grim, and gruesome—those gr words described it quite well. The people here were inhospitable. He couldn’t exactly blame them for being ornery; they had an affliction that caused them immense distress. Said distress caused them to recklessly consume everything around in a bid to sate the insatiable. It was like a world of violent addicts. It would certainly be easy enough to turn tail and run away. As he’d mentioned, they had the skeleton key at hand.

Argrave looked behind himself, eyeing the one they dragged along. “Our former escort mentioned that only the Hopeful and his lieutenants know how new life comes to the Shadowlands. Considering her revolt, I think there’s more to this situation that’s left unknown. I don’t think the Hopeful is entirely the benevolent dictator this man declares him as. And I think we can get some answers, at the very least.”

He looked upon the white-haired Shadowlander. When she wasn’t trying to kill him, she looked somewhat small. “Still… best be prepared for flight at any moment. This one’s a bit of a firebrand.”

#####

“Tell me what you want, give me the useless one, then fuck off,” the woman declared, waving her hand at them mere moments after they gave introductions.

much of her body was wreathed in shadows. Only dark red eyes shone past them.

could negotiate more amicably,” Argrave

thousands of my men,” she reminded him, staring stalwartly. “You won. Against my gut, I’m refraining from continuing my attempts to end you. But now that I’ll

of thousands of our people,” Anneliese said, putting a hand to her heart. “Through him, we have the means of escape from this place. Yet despite all of that, we put

“Of yet?” she repeated.

confirmed. “But we need answers from

the Hopeful may march toward this place

head. “He’s too scared of what he built falling apart to try anything. He hasn’t attacked you yet—he

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the distant abyss in quiet ponderance. She looked

the bound Shadowlander—they’d brought him to help persuade her, but now he had become a

directed. “It’ll help us know

brought her shadow-wreathed hands up and seemed to draw something down. Her abyssal flesh revealed itself, and soon enough all her features were clear. She looked surprisingly

started basically. “What are you fighting

the constant infighting, and the will pressing on the back of your neck to make you do that which you hate. I want all that shit to go away. It’s sickening. It’s worse than the hunger. Those under

Shadowlander’s openness, Anneliese asked intently,

permitted to know the whims of those that build the gutters, you see. But it serves a purpose for someone. Perhaps it’s punishment. Whatever it is, the Hopeful knows. I intend to extract

if she noticed any lies,

Shadowlanders? How does new life come here?”

part of the greater cycle outside of this place, outside of this realm. It hints that the Hopeful is not someone suffering the same affliction, but rather something placed here to keep us all in line.” She shook

Both he and Anneliese fell silent, chewing that with active minds. Anneliese clearly thought the woman wasn’t lying, and provided the Shadowlander wasn’t outright wrong… what could be

us Shadowlanders, the worst among the best. It’s why I call this place a gutter. With those questions, you have essentially all that I know that you couldn’t extract

I fear the same thing might happen to us if we let you have the key to the Shadowlands. We can work something out, but we need to know your intentions for the mortal realm. Our concern lies, bluntly put, in the living and breathing, not long dead gods

her arms. “The Hopeful is the one that sends out the weakest among us to