The Art of Escape - A Recruits Story

Chapter I: The Vanishing Act

Chapter II: Sleight of Hand

Chapter III: The Pledge

TW: death, allusions to abuse

Daren had never considered outright insubordination before.

It wasn’t in Ket nature. True, he had been born in Torsari, which no longer had a true Ket government to lead it, assign its citizens to their proper castes, or elevate them in rank or demote them according to their due—but his parents had brought him up in the proper ways. Even as a mercenary, he had never shirked orders before, no matter the client or the mission. And as a Shepherd, he had heard his obedience being touted by his instructors as something to be admired, something for the other recruits to emulate. For a would-be Khehi-Ket—whose promotion to another class tier depended on the assessment of one’s superiors and co-rankers—this was obviously something for him to lean into.

But this? This was intolerable.

First had been the galling fact that Justyn—womanizer, poet, and overall buffoon who occasionally put his boots on the wrong way—had been named team leader for a mission of such importance that their captain hadn’t even wanted other Shepherds to know about it.

Then came the revelation that—under Justyn’s watch—their sole mission objective had slipped the leash and run away. Daren couldn’t recall a time when his stress levels had been so high, particularly when he imagined the look on their captain’s face when they returned to Haven and reported that they’d simply lost Emarynne Reaver the first night she’d been in their charge. 

Then Cybele had found her—praise be to all gods—but of course, she’d then returned with the declaration that they would be changing the perimeters of their mission entirely, now spiriting the noblewoman to the distant North rather than returning her immediately and safely to Haven, as their original directives commanded.

And worst of all, Justyn had agreed to the whole cockamamie scheme almost immediately! Trust a bard to be led around by his lust rather than any sense of professionalism, obedience, or loyalty to his cause, Daren thought now with disgust, glaring at the man in question from over the anxious ears of his horse, who fidgeted restlessly under his stiff seat.  

The others had been surprised by Daren’s vehement objections to the whole plan—he could tell by the look on Cybele’s face—though he didn’t know why they thought he’d be enthusiastic about deviating from their orders. Did they think he was simply bound, blindly and mindlessly, to do whatever Justyn decided? His loyalty belonged to the Shepherds, to their captain, to their commander, in a strict hierarchal umbrella—not to his fool of a teammate, who was just as prone to mistakes and foibles as any other low-standing recruit.

At least Ysa had sided with him, though the passion of her opposition had taken them all by surprise. Most people regarded the Elementalist as quiet and mild-mannered, Daren knew, though he would personally classify her more as simply reserved. She rarely voiced her thoughts, which others took as meekness, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have her opinions; she simply rarely chose to share them, for reasons he had only recently begun to fathom. But her reaction to the idea that they might take Emarynne Reaver to her family estate in Kianlever—to help wage some kind of offensive against local insurgents—had caught even him off-guard. The color had drained from his teammate’s already-pale face, and her lilac eyes had grown huge with the taut wildness one saw in foxes who had found themselves unexpectedly cornered and trapped. She had adamantly refused to go north, even threatening to encase Emarynne in ice and haul her back to Haven herself… but in the end, Emarynne had returned in a cold voice: “Then you’ll be responsible for the deaths of all my kinsmen, my mother and my personal guards; if I’m not there to warn them, they’ll all be wiped out during the Thaw. And I never asked to be rescued by you Shepherds, by the way; you have no authority over me. So if you try to kidnap me back to Haven against my will, you’ll be no better than the Teivels… and I’ll see to it that you’ll face justice for it, too.”

And so, in the end, they’d gone, Daren sourly ruminating that his presence was necessary, if only to ensure that their charge wasn’t killed during the perilous journey back to Kianlever (which their captain would decidedly not have wanted). Ysa had come along, too, though she’d lapsed into a tight-lipped silence that felt dangerous in its specific mood. Daren had initially assumed her ill temper was an aftereffect of the spell she’d worked to bring the storm down on the Teivel estate… But as he glanced over at the Elementalist, who wordlessly shifted the reins of her nervous horse back and forth between gloved hands… he had to wonder. This felt like something else.

At that moment, Justyn called back from the front of the line, his voice oddly muffled by the crowding of the dark trees: “I can see an inn ahead!”

Beside him, Ysa sighed heavily, while Daren tried not to roll his eyes. They had been in Thielwood for a little over a week. At first the team had been apprehensive about entering it: the stories made the woodland realm sound like a primordial, haunted place, the kind of foreboding and eldritch country that swallowed unwary travelers so thoroughly that their bones never again saw the light of day. But it was easy to forget that the Elder Wood was once the birthplace of civilization—it still housed the greatest capitals of the Ket, Mages, and Elves on the Continent—and there were roads through it that were as well-traveled as any king’s highway, and little cities and settlements dotting its network just the same as on the Damba Plains. Emarynne claimed she had traversed this particular route well over a dozen times with little trouble. Of course, there were still parts of the forest that were as wild and fey as the legends claimed—and even swathes of territory guarded by political boundaries and treaty laws older than Haven itself—but after the first few days, they had grown used to it. So long as they kept to the roads, Emarynne assured them, they had nothing to fear. 

At least not from the Wood itself, Daren thought darkly, glancing up at the heavy bowers of the trees. Ket literature detailed plenty of accounts of skirmishes and battles in these branches, images of Khehi from Ygrath or Chicora crouching motionless overhead with charcoal-darkened blades, waiting for a cloud to scuttle over the moons so that they could leap down on their quarry in silent ambushes that would become famed the world over. Even now, in the pale gold of late afternoon, the Wood rose up around them in a tangle of shadow. The thick trees crowded for space. Strange white blooms bobbed ghostlike in the golden gloom. Winter still turned the earth here iron-hard and made their breaths form pale clouds, but no snow touched the ground. It was almost as if it was afraid to—as if that would somehow be a violation of sanctified earth. This forest was a powerful, mysterious place, common routes or no, and Daren couldn’t shake the urge to peer into its shadows, at the living giants of its trees, fearing otherworldly sentries who would suddenly materialize and forbid them from straying any farther into its depths.  

Though even if they were present, the patrollers and natives of Thielwood woule still be the least of their worries. Daren feared that if they stuck to the safe, well-traveled roads, it would make Emarynne Reaver’s pursuers all the more likely to catch up to them, especially if they suspected at all what her plan was. Unless the team went plunging headlong into the undergrowth and got themselves truly lost, they still hadn’t outrun Colen Teivel’s reach. Not if he still had men chasing them from Pliny’s Landing, and not if he had the wherewithal to send a messenger ahead to rally forces that could intercept them from the other way…

At that chilling thought, Daren spurred his horse forward to the front of the ragged line, startling Ysa into looking up for the first time all day. He rode up alongside Justyn’s dappled grey and said, “That looks like a large inn, with too many guests to keep track of. Any of them could slip away in the night and find a way to report our presence to Teivel. We should camp alongside the road.”

Cybele, whom he’d forced to fall back along the narrow path, audibly groaned behind him. “This again, Daren? We’ve been careful every day so far, and there’s been no sign of Teivel’s men. I told you, they think Ema’s headed back to Fort Lagann, or barring that, Haven. And Thielwood’s the biggest place on the Continent. There’s no way they’d think we’d take this particular road and stop at this particular inn.”

“They would if they know this is the route she’s taken a dozen times before,” Daren shot back, impatient. Didn’t anyone have any sense? It was already a known problem that the Teivels had spied on the Reaver family for years. Why wouldn’t they know the exact route Emarynne took whenever she returned home? To Cybele he added, “And don’t pretend you’re motivated by anything more than a desire to sleep in a bed.”

The Elf scowled, the expression childlike and petulant on her ever-young face. Strange to think she was almost three times his senior. “Can you blame me?” she asked sullenly, not to be deterred. “Elven blood doesn’t too well in the cold, in case you didn’t remember. I could die one of these nights. And anyway, we’re all exhausted. We can’t all sleep in the dirt and eat your feeble little river trout without feeling the effects. If we keep this up, we’ll show up to Kianlever and meet the rebels already half-dead in our saddles.”

Daren could only shake his head in disgust. To Justyn, he added: “Teivel could be paying people to keep their eyes out for our group. He has the wealth and influence to do it. Any one of the people in that inn could already have heard of the bounty that could be on our heads.”

But Justyn, in turn, looked to Emarynne, who was riding alongside him in thoughtful silence. Again, this was galling—he was supposed to be team leader, and yet he was deferring his decisions almost entirely to the noblewoman they were supposed to be protecting. Daren saw him take in the mud-splattered state of Emarynne’s borrowed cloak, the dark circles under her green eyes. Without looking away from her, he said slowly, “Even if there are people there who have been instructed to look out for us, that doesn’t mean they’ll have the forces to take us into custody; and we’ve been going as fast as we can. If we’re gone in the morning, there would still be no time for Teivel to catch up to us, even if someone lets him know we were there.”

For a moment, Daren wanted to bodily pull him off his horse and give him a good clout around the ears. “But why take the risk?” he asked through his teeth. “All for a bath and a bed? And for—” He glanced again at Emarynne, who was doing a steady job of pretending not to be listening. 

Justyn was glaring at him now, though the set of his chin was more defiant than intimidating. It was the first time the two of them had directly looked at each other in some time: though they’d had quite the row when Justyn initially made the decision to accompany Emarynne to Kianlever, the bard had also been distracted and lost in his own thoughts for the better part of a week. Cybele had snickered about his being “moon-mad” to Ysa and Daren, though her humor had swiftly withered in the face of their frosty silence.  

“It’s my decision, Daren,” the Enchanter said now. “And whether you like it or not, the captain put me in charge. I’d appreciate it if you endeavored to make my job easier, not harder.” 

“You hardly need my help,” Daren snarled back, incensed by the implication that his common sense was the obstacle here. “Your blind recklessness—your sheer blithe idiocy—is what makes the job harder for you, not me. Any other Shepherd would see—” 

“Well, you haven’t got any other Shepherd,” Justyn snapped then, though he looked more weary than angry. “There’s just me, and Cybele, and Ysa. If  you don’t like it, you can request a transfer when we get back. Until then, you’re stuck with us, and we’re going to that bloody inn.”

Daren wheeled in his seat and spurred his horse forward, biting back the deadly retort waiting behind his teeth. His horse huffed, equally annoyed, and together they plunged ahead along the road and clattered into the inn’s stableyard before the others had the chance to catch up. Behind him, his Ket hearing picked up Justyn’s murmured apology to Emarynne, and her faint reply: “No, I understand. But has he always been such a lone wolf?” 

He was still brooding over that question an hour later, after he’d flung his pack down in the room he’d be sharing with Cybele for the night and washed up. The others tactfully granted him his space, Ysa and Justyn electing to share a room with Emarynne next door and Cybele disappearing into the wash closet, muttering something about “men and their sword-waving contests.”

Now, Daren sat in the inn’s taproom alone, sipping from a flagon of warm spiced cider and glaring at nothing in particular. It wasn’t that he was a lone wolf of any sort, not really. He just conducted himself according to standards that were, apparently, too high for others to find reasonable. It was true that much of his youth had been spent alone—he’d been born to immigrants from Sion, who had no relations or other children for him to associate with—but that was hardly a special case. And once he left home and decided to take up the sword as a mercenary, he’d almost never been alone. He was either traveling with clients or drifting from one mercenary company to another, surrounded by soldiers of all stripes and backgrounds. True, he hadn’t particularly respected any of them, and it was also true that he’d never received any of the training or camaraderie that a true Khehi-Ket would have been privy to in any other city-state… Ket youth received instruction from actual mentors at an early age, while he was largely self-taught, and then they were constantly surrounded by entire platoons of battle-kin and lieutenants and leaders to look after them, to guide and understand them… But it wasn’t as if he’d avoided any of that by choice. Just the opposite, in fact. He wasn’t anti-social, he simply was surrounded by people who didn’t understand him. Just as it had been in the mercenary companies.

You thought it would be different in the Shepherds, a small grudging voice said in his head. Daren shook the thought off with a growl. It was different in the Shepherds. Their purpose, their discipline, and the overall attitude and goals of their organization was leagues beyond the petty concerns of the average sellswords and jaded ex-soldiers he had previously associated with. He had just had the bad luck of being stuck with—with teammates below his skill level.

And yet the Shepherds you respect so much deigned to assign you with those teammates. And the Hero of Haven chose Justyn instead of you to be team leader. Why?

That was the real question here. Why?

There was a sudden rustle of movement throughout the barroom, like an intermission after a long play, and Daren’s attention snapped up. But it was only Ysa, descending down the stairs of the inn like a soundless, ghostly maiden, her pale hair freshly-washed and tied back from her face. She always glided, swan-like, and while Daren had once admired the trait as a useful measure of natural stealth, he now saw that it made her more noticeable in certain contexts: some of the men at the bar were staring. Daren narrowed his eyes at them, and they quickly glanced away.

Ysa took the chair next to him without invitation, as composed and unruffled as ever. She said evenly, “Cybele will join us in a moment. Justyn and Emarynne decided to go for a walk down the road.” At Daren’s sharp look, she smiled slightly and said, “There’s a small shopping plaza a few hundred yards away. They’ll be fine.”

Daren opened his mouth, closed it again, and then shook his head. There were so many security issues with the current situation that it made his head spin, but of all people, Ysa was not the person who deserved to endure his criticism.

They sat in semi-comfortable silence for a moment before Ysa said quietly, “You wouldn’t actually put in a request for a transfer… would you?" 

Daren looked at her blankly. “Of course not,” he replied. While he respected most of the other captains in the Lunar Corps, transferring out of the Hero of Haven’s command was honest lunacy, no matter how much his teammates annoyed him.

Ysa’s wan cheeks were reddening in the warmth of the taproom; she looked away and nodded, signaling the nearby waiter for her own mug of honeyed vytas. Then she said, looking down at her clasped hands—still gloved, always gloved—“I think we’ve been behaving a bit badly, you and I.”

Daren tensed slightly, about to object, before she silenced him with a droll look. “I understand that we both have our objections to this plan,” she said, “and I know that it isn’t what the captain was planning on… but missions change all the time. Do you remember when we were sent in to rescue those prisoners from the bandits’ fortress in Pinesgrove, and there were almost twice as many captives as we expected? You were team leader then, and you didn’t choose to simply leave them because they hadn’t been named in our orders. The plan just… changed.” 

“That was different,” Daren began, his brow furrowing. “I… we… still rescued the prisoners we needed to rescue. It wasn’t as if I was told to rescue them and bring them back to their village, but decided, No, I think I’ll take them halfway across the Continent to somewhere else instead.”

Ysa sighed, as if he were being deliberately obtuse. “Do you want to know why Justyn was chosen to lead this mission, rather than you? I think that’s what’s really bothering you." 

Daren frowned and stared down into his flagon, the cider a perfect amber circle beneath the guttering tavern lanterns.

“The captain took this mission because it would earn the good favor of nobles,” Ysa continued. “Emarynne’s siblings, and who knows what other allies they might connect the Shepherds to. We need their influence: that’s the long and short of it. And Justyn understands the nobility, what they expect and how they think, and so… this mission is just as much about keeping Emarynne happy as it is about keeping her safe. If we return her to Haven in one piece, but she hates our guts, we’ll have failed our mission just as thoroughly if we let harm befall her. Justyn knows that, which is why we’re going along with her. He understands that we need her good regard.”

Daren gave her a more thoughtful look. It made sense, but… “I thought it was because he wanted to sleep with her.”

Ysa laughed, a little uneasily. “I don’t know about all that. Justyn is… zealous… but he’s never let his passions get in the way of his work before.”

“Yes, he has.” It had been during a training exercise only, but Daren had never forgotten the shame of Captain Alder catching Justyn flirting with one of his recruits and pelting him with rubber bullets for it. 

“Besides, if you’ve watched them at all this past week, I have the feeling that it’s a bit different this time. He’s… more careful with Lady Reaver. More courteous. There’s a sort of tenderness there—he’s not playing the swaggering, flirtatious bard he usually does.”

Daren stared at her for another moment, at which point Ysa blushed again and looked away, sipping her drink. Finally he asked the question that had been pressing at him for the last week: “My reluctance to go along with this has been clear. But why is it so loathsome for you?”

It occurred to him for the first time that there was a real possibility that Ysa could be nursing her own infatuation for their teammate, and that was why she might have objected to spending more time in Emarynne’s company than was strictly necessary: perhaps she hoped to separate them sooner rather than later. For whatever reason, Justyn seemed to appeal to women, and while Cybele baldly declared herself a lover of women herself, Ysa had never been nearly so forthcoming. In fact, Daren realized in that moment that he knew hardly anything about his teammate at all, other than how she liked her tea prepared and that she tried to read a few pages in her bedroll even when she was out on the road. But when it came to her feelings, those concealed inner thoughts…

Ysa was silent for a long moment, and they let the chatter and rumble of the barroom wash over them in the meantime. Daren glanced around and took in more than his cursory, habitual first assessment had revealed: the clientele in this place was far more diverse than they were used to outside of Thielwood. The population here was almost entirely Diminished. There was a group of excited, chattering Mages wearing colorful robes, poring over an old book in the corner; a mixed party of Elves and Hunters seemed to be playing a tile game close at hand. Two of men who had stared at Ysa by the bar were Ket, Khehi fighters by the look of them—Daren also guessed that they were Luxuen from their garb and the way they wore their jagged, chin-length hair. They were still looking at him, their gazes interested and not altogether friendly. Daren glanced away from them just as Ysa began to talk again.

“I need to tell you something,” she said slowly. “You know I come from the North.”

Daren nodded. “Korgoth,” he said simply. It was obvious from her accent, the little things she’d let slip over the months.

Again Ysa flushed: was she catching cold? She continued, a bit more shakily, “But I—we never discussed the circumstances of my leaving.” Her eyes dropped to her gloved hands again. “My mother died when I was born, during the delivery. I don’t think she ever told my father that she was… a Mage. She didn’t have the iladrin, and perhaps she didn’t even know it herself…” She blinked rapidly, and her interlaced fingers tightened subtly. “Things were fine, for most of my childhood. My father was—he wasn’t a Mage, but he didn’t seem to mind my nature much. Or if he did, he never mentioned it to me. But then he remarried when I was ten… and his second wife was a very pious woman… and she was also… hateful.” She shook her head hastily. “No, none of that matters. I left, and the circumstances of my leaving were… not ideal. I cut all ties with them and left without a note. I haven’t seen or spoken to them since. But it’s what my father did—does—for a living that matters. He was a prominent weapons merchant in Korgoth.” At Daren’s look, she amended: “He was an arms dealer. I believe that people in Haven call it a gun-runner.”

Daren straightened, all of his attention focused on his teammate now. “Does that mean…”

Ysa shook her head, looking as if she’d rather be doing anything but having this conversation. “I don’t know,” she whispered, her expression shamed—and fearful. “I keep telling myself that he wouldn’t involve himself with… whatever Colen Teivel and the insurgents might be doing… but I definitely remember hearing about the Spring Thaw in our household, growing up. We called it something else, but…”

“But he wasn’t a fighter,” Daren pressed. “Merely a supplier? He won’t be with the rebels at Kianlever?” The idea of Ysa having to face her own father on the battlefield was…

She’d flinched at his urgent tone. “I don’t know,” she repeated miserably. “I left so long ago… I have no idea what he’s doing now, whether he even has the capacity to be involved with whatever Colen Teivel has been cooking up with this new weapon Lady Reaver seems to fear so much. It seems the faintest, silliest chance, but I can’t shake the dread in my heart that…”

“Hallo! I’ve found a pair of funeral-goers over here—barkeep, send over a mug of your finest ‘loosen up juice’!” Cybele, who’d appeared seemingly as if from nowhere, looked from his face to Ysa’s, newly-cheerful and steaming from her bath as she slapped Daren’s shoulder with avuncular jollity. “Oh, come on, it was just a little spat, no need to look so dour! Justyn’s fine, he’s probably off snogging in the woods with Emarynne as we…”

Their dour mood finally registered as Daren shot her a deadly look and Ysa dropped her eyes, looking as if she wanted to be sick. Cybele wilted and slowly sat down in the third chair beside them. “Oh. Erm. Am I… interrupting something?”

She gave Ysa a significant look, arching her brows, and the Elementalist only shook her head wearily. Daren, who couldn’t even begin to fathom the nonverbal ways women communicated with each other, said roughly, “You must be the most tone-deaf Elf to ever exist.”

“Oh, fuck off, how was I supposed to know you were having an intimate meeting right in the middle of the barroom? You could have used one of our rooms if you were so eager to…”

The rest of it dissolved into their usual sniping. Through it all, Daren kept casting glances at Ysa, who remained quiet but seemed to recover her spirits slightly in the face of Cybele’s chattering normalcy. Privately, the dark-haired Ket was a bit relieved at the interruption: he was glad his teammate had trusted him with such sensitive personal information, in an obscure sense, but what was one supposed to say in response to it? Had she wanted—condolence, comfort, reassurance? A practical plan of what to do if and when her father actually resurfaced during the Spring Thaw? And was he obligated to inform the others of this revelation, for the sake of the mission? It didn’t seem that relevant, and Ysa clearly wasn’t ready to share the information so freely, but would he be a hypocrite in criticizing Justyn for prioritizing someone’s feelings over their team’s professionalism if he did the same thing?...

Seeking relief from the sudden barrage of new questions pelting his thoughts, he left off bickering with Cybele and went to the bar to order them some dinner while Ysa and Cybele lapsed into a flurry of furtive whispering. As he waited for the barkeeper to return from some backroom, he caught the eye of the two Luxuens at the bar again.

One of them actually addressed him. “Sion?” 

Daren regarded him warily. They were both older than him, one of them rangy and a bit ragged looking, with chin-length dark brown hair covered by a purple kerchief and X-shaped scars crisscrossing his craggy brown cheeks. The other was more muscular than his companion, with vivid blue eyes, a dark topknot, and a peculiar way of holding his brawny shoulders that made him look perpetually tense and on-guard, like a hyena circling on the outskirts of a bloodbath, ready to nip in and claim a stake when no one else was looking.

It was common for Ket to introduce themselves with their city-state rather than a more traceable surname—he had called himself Daren of Torsari as many times as he had used Daren Corby—but that information was always freely given: it seemed a breach in protocol to directly ask another, especially if the recipient could be a Khehi-Ket on a mission or in an undercover guise… but perhaps the culture in Luxue was different. It was, after all, one of the only city-states that had never signed the Code of War. Perhaps they simply saw it as a way of striking up a conversation.

Daren automatically slipped his hands to the back of his belt, a signal to desire that he wasn’t looking for any kind of fight—just in case. “Torsari,” he answered guardedly, keeping his tone as flat and clipped as possible.

The two men exchanged significant glances. “Caste-less, then,” the brawnier man said. “You carry yourself like a Khehi, boy, but you never took your rites?”

Instantly, Daren’s vision flared, crystallized impossibly as the arma in his blood surged in offense. The man had said it in a neutral enough tone, but the insult was as clear as it was off-handed. These men held him in contempt, and they regarded him so little a threat that they had no issue letting him know it. 

Why? that voice in Daren’s mind demanded again. He’d done nothing to them. Was all the world so determined to let him know his place? Or was there some other motive here? If these men were true soldiers for Luxue, they would never behave so discourteously—very few enlisted Khehi ever went looking for a barroom fight, Code of War or not—which meant they had to be independent mercenaries. His brain thumped hotly as he thought, And why would mercenaries take any interest in me?

The brawny man had slid off of his stool, his own arma flaring dangerously in response to Daren’s unrepressed pulse of challenge. He flexed his right hand, shook it a little—a clear warning—and his companion said with an ugly laugh, “Peace, Canot, you’re drunk.” To Daren he said: “My friend spoke unwisely, but we found ourselves curious about your story. How does one such as yourself find yourself in the company of people like that?” He nodded towards Cybele and Ysa, though Daren was too coiled and keyed up to look. He only had the long knife at his belt, he thought, cursing himself, and the one in his boot; he had left his hook-swords leaning against the underside of the table. Amateur mistake, and likely one that would get him killed: these men knew what they were about. His throat felt as if it was spilling over with arma and battle-adrenaline, bright and thready. Half-choked with it, he returned, “That’s none of your business.” 

“Clients of yours?” the scarred man pressed, heedless of the tension between them now. “Friends? Relatives?”

Daren flexed his hands: that last part had been another jest at his expense. “They’re under my protection.” Their honor was his honor, in other words; any insult to them would be answered by him. And that was true: whatever he thought of his team, they had his mythas. He couldn’t change that even if he wanted to. 

The two men exchanged mocking glances. “I told you, Vispek,” the brawny man rumbled, his voice growing louder. “If they were his courtesans, they’d be prettier.”

The tension in Daren’s brain seemed to snap. He surged forward and drew his knife; the other Ket leapt to meet him.

Even in the heat of battle, Daren knew he’d behaved improperly. A line had been crossed, and he had the right to claim bloodfeud, but he was supposed to declare it beforehand, to formalize it and solidify any ensuing damage as his by legal right. They were probably even supposed to go outside, to avoid the whole thing turning into a spectacle: that would be the seemly thing to do. But the arma in his blood was high and churning, and every movement on the periphery of his vision left smears of light as his brain went into overdrive, slowing down every action and heightening his reflexes. He hadn’t thought; he’d simply acted. The man called Canot stayed cool and easy, a grim little smile on his face as he leveled a dark-glinting dagger—good Ket steel and nigh unbreakable—and their blades met each other in a cool ringing glide. There was a pause—the vesathat, the battle-vision, turned everything both sluggish and amplified—and then a delayed scream came behind him. Daren thought, looking at his opponent’s smile: He planned for this. He wanted me to fight him.

All at once, his brain snapped through a series of conclusions.

They were mercenaries.

They had taken special notice of his group.

They wanted Cybele and Ysa, and perhaps Justyn and Emarynne too, if they’d seen them. They wanted to get rid of Daren. An easy and lawful way to do that was to challenge him to bloodfeud. Even with witnesses, no one else would have the right to interfere, and the idea of Ket dueling each other over matters of honor—and even slaying their opponents in the ensuing conflict—was not an extremely unusual one to the Diminished clientele in this inn. The matter would be considered resolved, no authorities would be called. The death would be accepted as just, at least according to the obscure protocols that governed Ket culture. He’d agreed to the risk by initiating the duel, after all. The mercenaries couldn’t be prosecuted or blamed.

It wasn’t that they deemed him weak, Daren realized as his dagger flicked up to parry Canot’s testing, darting stab. They’d deemed him the group’s largest threat. They wanted to eliminate him first, and in as tidy a way as possible. The others, they thought they’d be able to corral. Why?

There is a bounty, he thought, with something like grim triumph. I was right. They recognized us, and they want to turn us in to Colen Teivel. But they want to get rid of me first. 

Another knife had appeared in Canot’s hand. Daren skipped back just in time to avoid having his eye slashed open, but sweat broke out on his body at how close the blow came. The knives danced in Canot’s hands like dark-headed snakes. Despite his larger size, he was fast. And he was better than Daren. He was even laughing at him. It was only a matter of time now.

Barely a handful of seconds had passed—the confrontation had been so muted, and their movements so swift and quiet that hardly anyone had registered what was going on—but for Daren, it already felt as if half an hour had gone by. His thoughts were reeling: if he could only snatch the knife out of his boot, he’d be better-matched against Canot, but the time it would take would leave him too vulnerable. If he accepted the possibility of grave injury, he could surge in and deal a killing blow, but then he’d have to count on his teammates on finding a Healer who could mitigate his own damage, if he lived at all… 

Of a sudden, there came a high cry of warning from behind him: almost by habit, Daren feinted to the right and allowed Cybele to charge past him, hurling a chair at Canot’s head. The older Ket knocked it aside with a forearm, his face stoic and tense now—it was a grave violation to step into a matter of bloodfeud, although Cybele couldn’t know this was what that was—before a cask on the bar counter exploded into a flurry of ice and darted straight towards the man’s face.

Daren seized his opportunity and moved. Not towards Canot, who had been taken off-guard and was now contending with Cybele jabbing at him with her sword on one side and parrying flying icicles on the other—but towards his companion, Visper, who had so far made no move to intervene out of respect to the laws of bloodfeud. But he would be next, if Daren was right about their plans, and Cybele and Ysa’s interference meant he could now leap into the fray as well—and judging by what he could sense about the man and his arma control, Daren gauged him to be an even more fearsome fighter than his friend.

But as he lunged towards the man, he saw that his expression was frozen, paralyzed, his body as rigid as a plank’s. He could only stand there, mute, as Daren darted towards him and slashed open his throat. 

A thick arc of red splashed against the counter and the smoke-darkened wall of the inn. The other Ket dropped soundlessly to the floor, and Daren turned and leapt back, coiled and ready as a cat for Canot’s response.   

But there was no need: he, too, was already dead, impaled through the eye by a glittering white spike. Breathing hard, Daren looked to the rest of the room, hunting for other threats, any signs of reinforcement. He saw the wide, startled eyes of the Mages in the corner, fallen silent over their book now; the more reserved Elves watching the debacle with something like clinical interest.

He saw, too, Justyn and Emarynne standing in the doorway of the inn, having only just returned from their sojourn to the market. Emarynne looked shocked and bloodless, but it was clear from the look on Justyn’s face, that grim knowing in his eyes, that it had been his magic that had paralyzed Visper. 

The Enchanter looked, slowly, from the bloody, twitching bodies on the floor up to Daren. Too quietly for anyone else to hear—though loud enough for Daren’s senses to pick up on it—he said softly, “You were right. About all of it.”

In another time, Daren would have taken a smug pleasure in the revelation, or he might have taken the opportunity to nail Justyn to the wall for it. But he only seized Cybele’s arm and hauled her past Canot’s corpse, herding her towards Ysa, who still stood tight with battle-readiness. “That doesn’t matter,” he said. And it truly, really didn’t. “We need to get everyone out of here. Now.”