This may work better as this month’s story.
…
In the Halls of the Lily King
Holy Quebec, Republique Imperiale du Canada
(Quebec City, Canada)
2808 AD
The twilight fog tasted of sea and smoke. It didn’t reek of either, or even stink. In fact, it reminded Waylon Salvager of feasts, back home. He wished it didn’t; the cuisine in Holy Quebec had few charms for a proper Kentuckian fighting-man. It’d been years since he’d had a proper barbeque.
It’d been a bit longer since the last time he’d been summoned for a quiet meeting in an alley, only to find a corpse, instead.
He squatted, careful of the half-frozen pool of blood in front of him. The corpse sprawled at his feet wouldn’t be eating, ever again, though from the clothes he’d been the sort who turned up his nose at a smoked mutton shoulder anyway. The gaping throat said how he’d died, but not why…
The breeze shifted.
Waylon instantly turned and drew his shortsword in one smooth motion, keeping his boots out of the blood as his back found the alley wall. He blinked as his other hand complained at his reflexive grab for a belt knife, but he fought down the spike of pain otherwise. It wasn’t important at the moment, and seeing who else was here was.
