Tyren didn’t know much about the undead, but he knew enough to recognize a liche when he saw one. He turned to flee again, but encountering a liche was a prime example of what Heroes’ Guild auditors referred to as “statistical death:” circumstances wherein a person’s chances of survival were so near zero that his or her life was, for all intents and purposes, definitively over.
Tyren didn’t make it two steps before the math played out.
The liche wove a plume of violet flames with a casual wave of his hand, blasting Tyren from his feet. As the knight-commander fell in agony, his belt pouch burst open, and the family woodcut fell into view. A sudden longing washed over him amidst the pain, and he tried to scream Aubey’s name, but he couldn’t make a sound. The picture curled and blackened to ash in moments, and then Tyren’s world vanished in a flash.
Light filled Tyren’s consciousness, narrowing into a circle of brilliant white, and for a moment he felt compelled to walk toward the luminous singularity. Yet longing and anger still filled him, burning hot and weighing heavily. The emotions pulled him backward, downward, and he fell into what seemed like an eternal darkness.
In time, the shadows around Tyren congealed into the charred husks of buildings and heaps of rubble. He clutched at the ground and froze when his fingers hit the cobbles with a cold click rather than the familiar pressure of flesh on stone. He turned his gauntlet over, and through blackened holes in his chainmail he saw that his hand was gone, replaced by a skeletal appendage.
Confusion gripped him. He turned away from the ghastly sight and immediately leapt to his feet. Not an arm’s length from his face a skull bobbed in the air, surrounded by a cloud of bloodred flames. It stared at Tyren with a single, lidless eyeball.
“What is happening?” Tyren cried in a voice much like his own, but colder. More flat. Distant.
“Hello!” said the skull. It bobbed up and down in a manner reminiscent of a friendly wave. “You’ve been selected to be a part of a focus group!”
“I just never would have expected that,” said Laruna, propping Kaitha up on her shoulder as they made their way toward the campsite. “I mean, not with a ranger anyway.”
Kaitha grit her teeth as she limped. “Anyone can trip over a tree root and twist their leg.”
“I thought it was a rock?” said Laruna.
“I feel like the key point here is my leg,” said Kaitha.
Camp was still a good distance off, and the road was farther still. The campsites and cookfires of evacuees lined the main route from Vetchell to Parald. The moving city raised a constant din that could be heard from miles away.
After days with a grueling pace, Laruna’s party had put enough distance between themselves and Vetchell’s displaced populace to finally hear themselves think. They set up their tents shortly before the sun set, and after dinner there was still enough daylight for some sparring before bed.
At least, Laruna had presumed there was enough light, but then the Elf face-planted in the middle of the field.
“Right, accidents happen.” Laruna glanced around. “So, do you need me to… heal… you?”
“No, no! That’s quite all right,” said Kaitha hurriedly.
“Oh, thank the gods.” Spells for mending wounds, curing poisons, and cleansing disease were all part of a typical solamancer’s skill set, but Laruna specialized in pyromancy. She’d never been much good for anything in the healing ward, save perhaps cauterizing wounds.
“Maybe I could borrow an elixir though?” Kaitha suggested.
“A healing potion?” Laruna looked at the Elf’s limp. “I mean, I saw you fall. It didn’t seem that serious.”
“Right. But as a precaution.”
“A precaution against what?” The mage gave the ranger a sideways glance.
“Infection? Possible breaks?” Kaitha huffed. “Look, I just thought you might have picked some salve up back in Vetchell or something.”
“Gods, you sound like…” Laruna didn’t consciously stop herself from saying “a salve-head.” Rather, words failed her as memories from the past year hijacked her train of thought. The Elf’s constant scratching of her wrists. Kaitha’s frequent requests to borrow others’ potions. The ranger’s habit of staring into the distance, talking softly to herself.
“It might be a sprain, or worse,” the Elf continued “I can’t do my job if I can’t walk, so I… Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Looking at you like what?” said Laruna, trying to look nonchalant.
“You’re giving me the ‘you have a problem,’ look, Laruna,” said Kaitha.
“No I’m not,” said Laruna. As an afterthought, she broke into a wide grin.
Kaitha scowled. “Don’t play games. Every town crier from here to the Imperial City has called me a drunk. I’ve had more interventions than birthdays, and I’m really old. I know the ‘you have a problem’ look when I see it, and you’re giving me that look. Or you were. Now you’re just smiling like you’re guilty or kind of insane.”
“I never said you had a problem.”
“Good,” said Kaitha. “Because I don’t have a problem.”
“Although that is what someone with a problem would say,” the solamancer added.
They stared at each other through narrowed eyes.
“Yes,” said Kaitha slowly. “But it is also what someone without a problem would say.”
“I… I mean…” Laruna looked around helplessly. Like most mages, she had spent her life neglecting relationships in favor of bending reality to her will. Now that her circumstances called for diplomacy and tact, she was no more useful than a club in a wizards’ duel.
There were, Laruna realized, some problems that she couldn’t set on fire.
“It’s just that if…” the solamancer stumbled. “If you didn’t know you had a problem or you were in denial about it—”
“You know what?” Kaitha pulled away from Laruna and hopped a couple of steps away. “I don’t need this right now. Life is hard enough without my so-called friends second-guessing my injuries. I’ll make it back to camp on my own, thanks!”
“Kaitha!” Laruna called. “Kaitha, I’m sorry!” She started to follow the Elf, but stopped short, in part because she had no idea what to say, and in part because the ranger’s limp was vanishing as she strode back toward her tent. The solamancer’s hands dropped to her sides.
Laruna liked to keep things simple. It was why she loved professional heroics; there wasn’t much a hero encountered that couldn’t be solved with a liberal application of fireballs. Unfortunately, until recently that had been her preferred method for solving interpersonal conflict as well. She still had no idea how to peacefully resolve problems with other mages, let alone how to approach an immortal ex-celebrity about a potential drug problem.
A thought struck the solamancer. Gorm was also an ex-celebrity, and while not immortal, he was both older than Laruna and crotchety beyond his years. Plus, he and Kaitha were close friends. Perhaps he would have some insight. Laruna started walking faster toward the camp.
A quick glance around the cookfire confirmed that Gorm hadn’t returned to camp yet. Just as Jynn lost himself in books, or Heraldin and Gaist ceaselessly played thrones, the Dwarf escaped the stresses of their travels nearly every night by wandering off into the woods.
If memory served, Laruna had seen the Dwarf set out for a distant copse of birch and pine. Even at a distance, the small wood looked like the perfect spot for a private conversation about how to handle a potential crisis. Gorm would know what to do.
With a nod to herself, the solamancer turned from camp and set out to find the Dwarf.
“Do you even know where you’ll search?” Thane asked.
“Not sure. Aya’s papers say who owns the artifacts we need, but not where they’re kept.” Gorm sat at the edge of the small creek running through the shallow ravine they occupied, working a whetstone over the edge of his axe. “First thing is to get to Parald. After that, we’ll see i
f we can figure out which relic to look for.”
“Just one?” Burt asked. The Kobold reclined by the shore on Gorm’s rucksack, gnawing on a rabbit bone.
“Aye, and only then because we’ve no other good choice,” said Gorm. He rinsed his stone and axe in the stream. “Artifacts are trouble, one and all. And worse, Jynn says most of these on Aya’s list were made by the Sten. Ye can’t trust anything the Sten touched.”
“Who are the Sten?” said the Troll.
Gorm looked at the Troll. The hulking Shadowkin wore a big smile, expectant and naive.
It was hard to keep track of the boundaries of Thane’s knowledge. He must have been the most eloquent and sophisticated Troll on Arth, but that wasn’t a high bar to jump. Or step over. A Wood Gnome would have to work to trip over the bar. Troll culture consisted of individuals lurking in suitably ominous territories and killing anything that came too close. A Troll’s upbringing would make the School of Hard Knocks look like a preparatory academy. It was the sort of education that left gaps in a student’s teeth as well as in their knowledge.
“Uh, a bad sort,” said Gorm, backpedaling as fast as his tongue could carry him. “At least, as far as the legends are concerned. Ain’t been around for ages. Even the oldest Elves don’t remember ‘em.”
“So, why worry about them if they’re gone?” asked Thane.
“It’s more about what they left behind,” said Gorm.
“The artifacts?”
“That too,” Burt said.
“Well, what else did they leave?” Thane said.
“Uh… look, Shadowkin are all descended from people of light, right?” The Dwarf shifted uncomfortably. “Gnolls used to be Gnomes, and Goblins came from Dwarves, and Orcs were Elves, right? Well the Trolls… they were Sten.”
“Ah.” Thane’s smile disappeared. “So, you hate the Sten because of Trolls.”
“No! Well, that’s not the whole reason. Look, ye ever hear of the War of Betrayal? When Mannon led the Shadowkin to war—”
“Because he tricked and sorcerously enslaved them,” interjected Burt.
“Aye, aye, not placin’ blame or anythin’,” said Gorm. “But when the war began, the Sten sided with the Trolls. It’s one reason it’s called the War of Betrayal. That and all the gods stabbin’ each other in their metaphysical backs.”
“So… people hate Trolls because of the Sten, then,” said Thane.
Gorm and Burt winced in unison. “Well, that’s not the whole reason,” said the Kobold.
“There’s also all the rippin’ people’s limbs off and eatin’ them,” said Gorm. “But we know ye wouldn’t do that. Ye ain’t like other Trolls.”
“But I’m not like you either,” said Thane. He reached into a pouch hanging from his bandolier and extracted something small and purple.
“What’s that?” Stepping closer, Gorm saw a figurine of a knight in the Troll’s palm, painted all in purple and wearing a quartz crystal on its chest. It reminded Gorm of the armor old Royalheart used to wear back in the day.
“Just something Kaitha left for… Something she gave me.” Thane stared at the tiny statue for a moment, turning it over and over in his hands. “I’ve thought about what you said, about revealing my secret to her.”
Gorm could tell where this was going. “Look, ye can’t take people’s feelings about the Sten personally.”
“It’s more the way they feel about the Trolls,” said Thane.
“Well, look, just because we said—”
“It isn’t just because of what you said,” rumbled Thane. “It’s because of how it’s always been. From the first time I saved someone in the Myrewood, they always… they screamed and ran away. For years every single person I helped fled, sometimes while I was still rescuing them. It wasn’t until I saved a young merchant while hidden from her that one of them spoke to me at all. But when I stepped out of the trees, she ran off as well.”
Gorm started to say something, but a paw fell on his hand and stopped him. Burt looked up and shook his head.
The Troll stared into the distance, as though watching the past play out. “I tried every way to approach them. I was friendly, I was benign, I waited for them to invite me out of the shadows, I had entire conversations from the undergrowth before standing. None of it mattered. Sometimes they screamed, sometimes they went silent with fright, and sometimes they even shot arrows or threw spells to cover their escape, but all of them ran. And the worst part… the worst part was the way they looked at me right before they fled.”
“It wasn’t the arrows and spells?” said Gorm, earning himself a hard nudge from the Kobold.
Thane shook his head. “People make this face when they see me. Their eyes open wide and they get paler. It’s all the fear and disgust they have, balled up and ready to come out as a scream. I couldn’t stand to see that face, but every time… every single time. It became easier to stay hidden.”
“Kaitha’s different,” Gorm said over Burt’s pantomimed protest.
“Of course she’s different.” Thane laughed mirthlessly. “She’s gentle, and kind, and powerful, and beautiful, all in ways I never thought anyone could be. I wouldn’t have followed you from the Myrewood if she wasn’t what she is. But the people I saved were as varied as the plants of the swamp. Fighters, mages, merchants, tinkers, pilgrims, and priests; I helped all sorts, Gorm. They were all different.”
The Troll looked at himself in the stream. “I’m the part that doesn’t change. I’m still the same. And some days you just have to wonder if they have a point. If they’re right to be afraid.”
Thane reached down and swiped a hand through the water, scattering his reflection. “I remained hidden for a long time, until a traveler and his wife tried to coax me out by setting a scrap of velvet on a rock as an offering. I took it when they weren’t looking, and they… they knew I was there. They could see I was real, and they thanked me before they left. And I know it wasn’t much of a connection, but it was still a connection, and one that didn’t involve watching them run away or getting shot in the face.”
“I… I’m sorry.” It was hard for Gorm to argue with that logic given his own initial meeting with Thane; their first encounter had involved a lot of screaming, fleeing, and axe blows to the Troll’s head.
“They must have told people what happened, because more people started setting out purple trinkets. And some began to call me the King in the Wood. I heard them tell legends about me around the cookfires.” The Troll grinned at the memory, his fangs sticking out at odd angles. “And I was almost a part of their camps. Almost. The idea of me belonged, even if the rest of me didn’t.”
He took a deep breath before continuing. “Kaitha likes the idea of me, the legend she wants to be true. And if I can be that for her, if I can have that connection, I have to protect it. Because if she ever knew the reality, if I ever saw her make that terrified face—”
A piercing scream split the air, startling Gorm and the Shadowkin to attention. They looked up to the top of the ridge. Laruna stood at the edge of the woods, shrieking at the top of her lungs.
Thane sighed as he looked at the mage’s terrified countenance. “Yeah, that’s the one,” he said just before the firestorm washed over him.
Garold Flinn was feeling the heat.
Not in the physical sense, of course. Spring’s warmth touched the Palace of Andarun last, and at this elevation it was still cold enough to see Flinn’s breath in the last of dusk’s light. Rather, the pressure of his job was becoming acute in a way that was really only possible for hired killers.
The Tinderkin ran a sweaty palm through his hair as he glanced around pillars at the edge of the palace garden. His other hand, or more precisely, the silver mechanism that an artificer had replaced it with, rapped its talons on the marble of a column.
A shadow fell over the ground in front of the Tinderkin. “Good evening, Flinn,” said a deep voice.
Mr. Flinn tried to suppress a shudder as he leaned back
against the pillar. He didn’t turn around. “Sir.”
“You’ve heard about Vetchell.”
“Indeed, sir. A pity about the undead,” said Mr. Flinn.
“King Handor will find out about the attack tomorrow,” said the shadow. “I think the situation presents an opportunity.”
“I’ve bought into several promising stocks on the news,” said Flinn.
“Have you now? A good move!” said the voice. “But I was asking if you had heard the rumors that Gorm Ingerson and his party reported the undead incursion.”
Flinn had been expecting the subject of Gorm Ingerson to arise, but not in this manner. “Really? But… I heard it was the knight-commander of Vetchell’s city guard.”
“I thought you had better sources, Flinn.” The voice from the shadows laughed darkly. “I certainly hoped so, given the amount of giltin we’re paying you to make Ingerson and his companions disappear. After our last discussion, I assumed you would be the one providing information this time.”
Flinn nodded. “Yes sir. I shall endeavor to find better sources in Ruskan.”
“Do you suppose that will help?” asked the shadow. “I doubt he’ll be there much longer. Ingerson does tend to pop up in random places at the most inconvenient times.”
“Very unfortunate, sir.”
“You have no idea, Mr. Flinn,” growled the voice in the shadow. “Listen. Whether they call themselves mercenaries, heroes, or assassins, there are only two types of hired killers: useful partners and loose ends.”
Mr. Flinn took a deep breath. It was the second time he’d heard the loose ends speech in less than a week. That was the problem with taking on multiple contracts for the same job: the pay may have been twice as good, but the price of failure was twice as bad. And while the Tinderkin doubted that Goldson and Baggs could find an assassin skilled enough to make good on their implicit threats, some of his clients wouldn’t need to find a surrogate killer. The one in the shadows always preferred a more personal touch.
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