Vsil - elven for vale. In one vsil marched a brigade of freemen towards the Daggerlanes, home of boy-lord Percival Sarry.

It was led by a chariot big enough for a small child. Riding it was a rat, long-whiskered, claw and tail wrapped around a glaive four sizes too big.

Behind him were war wagons, guarded, thick with stakes, oil, and palepowder. In the center was the loud cawing of crows, a murder perched on a spire of metal attached to the harness of a giant Miloch.

On a chilly afternoon, a crow landed on the spire. The letter-master, a young and sharply-dressed man on trotting horseback, took the vellum from its leg. His eyes scanned its content. He galloped to the front, past flanks of squires and carts of archers. When he reached the chariot, he handed it to Haron. "Word from your nephew. Someone curious comes to the Buckler."

"Who?" Haron took the letter, though he kept his eyes on the road. It wouldn't be long before they reached the crossroads into Daggersarry.

"In a few days." The letter-master cleared his throat, pounding his chest, ridding himself of phlegm. Haron cocked his head and pointed a flopping ear in the boy's direction. "My apologies."

"If you've pox, I'll have to send you away. Can't have my boys sick on the eve of battle."

Eve of battle, the letter-master heard. The Commandant had already supposed that Percival wouldn't break. And everyone knew it: these soldiers weren't here to attend or intimidate; they were here to fight and fight well. Though Burrowreek had mangled much of his fighting force, it was unsurprising that Haron yet held the loyalty of one of the empire's largest armies. The Marshalls that could challenge him, to Haron's advantage, were far away, and wolves always set their greedy sights on much closer prey.

But this march was hardly comprised of elites. In the past weeks, the young and hopeful flocked to his banner and with them their arms. Even after pox ravaged his fortress, Haron fattened his numbers with hunters, farmers, slaves, and elves alike. They lingered in the core, lightly dressed, flanked by real shieldmen, his Mabradat.

The letter-master shook his head. "It must've been something I ate," he assured Haron. "It's not magepox, I assure you. But I implore you to read with your own eyes, Commandant. Your nephew stresses as much."

"Oh? The pup presumes a lot of me." Haron scanned it. Then, he scanned it again. Then, a third time. Adath's words were largely inconsequential; a group of Medicalers are coming the Buckler, the fool-prince among them, shivering with swallow's sweat and begging for an iron hand.

But it seemed his nephew knew Haron better than he thought, for a word was used quite deliberately, twice, once at the beginning and another at the end. Palanquin. They were bringing their palanquin. Haron bared his fangs with great glee.

"Friend or foe?" Ormrados, who had been riding alongside Haron this whole time, leaned forward and looked at the letter-master.

Haron raised a hand to stop the letter-master. "The prince is coming, and he brings his men with him. We'll find good friends yet, Ormradros."

Ormradros' eye twitched, and his grip tightened. "When?" He asked, a vein bulging in his forehead.

Haron shook his head. "No outbursts, Owmknight, not in my company."

"I won't cause trouble, Haron, but taking in that twerp? Is that really the right move?" Ormadros looked at the gaggle of elves in their army. "The prince is not an ally."

"You're right; he isn't." Haron set his sights back on the road. "Don't assume I don't know that."

"Then..." Ormradros gritted his teeth. "Tell me, Haron. Tell me why you quake with joy at the letter, at the prince's coming."

Haron laughed. "Then wage war for me, and wage it well."

Ormradros gripped his reins even tighter, trying to hide his rage.

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The army crossed the plains. The weather was favourable, blessed with cool mornings and warm days. The chatter of birds, crickets, and cicadas was everywhere, carried by breezes as sharp and fresh as good tea.

After a few more days, they eventually reached the crossroads, a fork split at the foot of a massive skull, ten wagons large, molars as big as children, scratched by vandals. That night, they made camp in its shadow, and Haron stayed in the shadow of its cranium.

Before midnight, clashing steel screamed through the camps. With haste, Haron and Ormradros scrambled to find the source, and it was only minutes before they did.

A boy, no older than fifteen, elven with a shoulder-length bob of straw hair, was carrying a fetched sword, almost as big as he was. Three men surrounded him, another three men down and bruised. When they heard Haron's arrival, the men backed off with worried looks in their eyes.

"What's brought me here? Come, tell me a good story!" Haron snarled. A claw gripped his spear. His tail dragged along the ground, making ripples in the mud like a man-sized sidewinder. "One, two, three, six! Six men! Trying to stop an elven pup, and I catch you unable." The men dared not look at him. "Stand down."

"But Commandant, we found this Salah-"

"Stand down, I said!" With that, they backed off, kneeled, and kept their eyes downcast.

The elven boy followed suit. "Oh?" Haron raised a brow. "I'd assumed that I trained my men enough," his eyes darted from man to man, "you are...Meron, Adia, and Latheron...on the ground there. You must be freemen I've not yet met."

The soldiers broke into a cold sweat. It was supposed to be a rumour, but what just happened was no mere murmur: he remembered them.

Through the crowd of onlookers came their captain, a long-haired man with an equally long beard, scraggy and dirty, wiry and scarred. "Commandant, please, we're trying to apprehend the urchin when-"

"Urchin?" Haron didn't cut off the captain to let him explain. Instead, he cut off the captain to let the boy explain. Ringed by a curious crowd, Ormradros kept his right hand firmly wrapped around the handle of his sword. "Let the pup speak."

"He stole from the -"

"Follow my orders, captain!"

"He's right." The boy mumbled. He grew closer to the fires, and whispers and shudders danced through the crowd. The boy's left eye was swollen, deep red veins swirled around a circle of sea-blue. Dried blood caked his lips and his shirt. "I was stealing."

"And what's your name?" Haron took a step forward. The boy flinched, but he stared back still, eyes dead, his small hands losing control of a sword too long for him.

"Why?" The elf eked out a whisper.

"Why?" Haron laughed at the question. "Why, he asks me, after beating three men with a sword ill-fitted to his grip, in a pauper's clothes. You're no squire, I see that, not a badge or sigil, and the prick of that ear from your hair, boy. Why, you ask me?" Haron bared his teeth, all of them, yellow with age with gums black as oil, fanged, hooked, gnarled, and barbed. The elf-boy recoiled. "I want to know who you are, your family, your origins, and whether I'm stealing someone's protege."

All eyes turned to Haron.

This boy? This whelp, stick-thin, half-blind, tired and sauntering, impetuous and foreign, alien and unknown, this elf-boy? Under Haron's tutelage? The breaker of elves, rat-general, steel-mane, glaive-king, Commandant, Baron of the Buckler?

"Haron, I think you should discuss the matter at hand with the others; the child could be a spy -" Ormradros began, but Haron shook his head and raised a claw. "I'm saying I'd rather you not put yourself in harm's way for this elf-boy."

Haron laughed. "This Serah pup is the least of my worries."

The boy's eyes had a twinkle in them. Serah.

He still shrunk away when Haron turned to him. "Your name."

The elf-boy could barely close his bulbous eye. "Athos, of Nadashsalam." It happened in an instant. Spears raised, blades crisscrossed around his neck, eyes venomous and the slow draw of a blade. Athos couldn't even pull back. "I came to Witchway after the city underwent sickness."

More whispers, more shudders. Haron took another step. "Underwent sickness?" He asked, his ears twitching. "Became sick? Did Witchway become sick? Tell me truthfully, you're in danger here, and tell me clearly. Lose the formal voice, tell me straight and true, like a comrade." Ormradros' grip tightened at the word.

Athos nodded. "They think it's elf-pox. They caught me..." he didn't need to answer anymore. The wind blew aside just enough hair for Haron to see. Half-ears, cut, dabbed and wrapped with strips of brown linen, smelling like death. To many elves caught in the empty lands of the empire, trimming down one's ears required a lot of time, patience, and a good pair of scissors.

But his words told a different story. They caught me, he said. It was good money; a man could last nights on powders of elf ears, they said.

"Half-drem," Ormradros whispered with pity. Round, like humans. It made sense now: long hair, a good bit of body, and the shadows could cover it all. An earring or two, and it'd be complete. The shine distracted baleful gazes.

For Athos, he'd not been so lucky; one ear was properly mangled, folded like cauliflower, but the other still there, stubborn, long, and uncut.

Gentle and long, Haron's tail brushed Athos' hair back and let the boy's tears run carelessly down his cheeks. "Let it simmer, my good Serah." He frowned. "Let it boil."

His sword grip weakened. Then, all energy left his knees, and with his head down, he cried. Haron shoved Athos' head into the ground.

"Not this much, not this long." He barked at him. "Bottle it up." He knelt to Athos and whispered in his ear, "you're allowed to cry after you've accomplished what you wanted to do. Now, what is it do you want to do?"

"I wanna live," Athos sobbed, his voice muffled as bubbles frothed from the mud. "I wanna-"

"Wrong!" Haron pushed him down even further. "You're already living! That's no goal, Athos. Come, reach deep into your heart, break past it. I'm here to make your wishes come true, Athos, so tell me, what is your wish?"

"I wanna find my sister. I wanna -"

"Wrong!" Haron yelled. "How can you find your sister if obstacles and enemies stand in the way? If I hadn't intervened? Would these men not gut you? What must you do? Tell me!"

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There came a silence. Athos stopped crying, and then, like the tweet of a bird, "I have to stop them?"

"Yes!" Haron patted his back. "Yes, yes! And how do we get rid of them?" By now, the crowd, which had been watching with wide eyes, whispers, rapt attention, felt it. The air was electric. The fires crackled even louder. A storm was coming. To many of them, they saw a poor elf-boy halfway across the empire in a military camp with his face pushed into the dirt by an uncaring beast. To a few, they saw something worse.

Six men, three down, longsword too long with a grip too weak. Hungry boy, bloodied and bashed, half-eared. Something was rumbling in Haron's camp. "I stop them."

"How? How do you stop them, Athos? Come on, tell me what it is you need, and I will give it to you! Let me fulfill your wish, your real wish!" Haron's empty claw crept to the dagger by his side.

"Please take me, ser Haron. Take me under your tutelage."

"Tutelage? For what, Athos? What, my dear elf-boy?" His grip on his dagger tightened.

"Teach me how to kill so that I may destroy my enemies so that I may find my sister so that I can go home."

Haron laughed, and without missing a beat, he pulled his sheathed dagger from his belt and handed it to Athos. Athos raised his head, now covered in mud, and let go of the sword he stole. He grabbed the dagger by its handle and lowered his head again. "Please, ser Haron. Teach me how to kill."

Haron knelt and hugged him, a shine in his black eyes. "I will. I will teach you everything you need to know to enact revenge against those who wronged you. I promise you."

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Athos was taken away to a Medicaler tent to treat his wounds, and Haron was prickling with glee. Rumours already began to fly through the camp: a Salah, here! And under Haron's wing!

But what was with that display? They watched the Commandant pushed the young lad's face into the mud and screamed at him with all his Vermite rage, and for what? To anger him? Was that the goal?

With the half-drem gone, Haron turned his attention to the men. Luckily, the three Athos felled were not dead, just wounded. One was knocked unconscious. The boy, it seemed, had not yet learned how to plunge the sword deeply enough to kill. Or perhaps, Haron thought, he hadn't the nerve to. It didn't matter; Athos will learn, as all his students have.

He sent the three beaten men to another tent, which left the three soldiers and their captain. Smile gone, Haron let off a low growl. "How did you lose to a child?"

One of them inched forwards. "A surprise, Commandant. The elf-boy grabbed Lerios' blade, and before we knew it, he had already attacked three of them. We couldn't respond in time."

Haron's fur danced at the back of his neck. "We're in the heart of the camp. For what reason would he attack you six, and here?" The soldier didn't say. None of them said anything. "Were you harassing him? Attacking him? Raping him?"

"No!" The soldier responded. "We didn't, Commandant."

"Then what?"

He closed his eyes. "He was our charge. He came with us to help carry our things when we left the Vsil. He said he wanted to join the army, and...we..."

"And he realized you weren't going to help him. You carried him along as a bag boy and robbed him of his dignity." Haron shook his head but then turned to their captain. "Did you not know of this?"

The captain closed his eyes. It was clear what was about to happen.

"Keron, you're silent." Haron's tail began to sway left and right, like a serpent waiting to strike. "Will you at least accept the charges on your men's behalf?"

Why should he? He didn't enslave this elf-boy! He wasn't the one who swindled him! But he knew what Haron wanted, and it was the same every time. If he let them get away with it, it was on him. He grabbed the hem of his shirt, ready to take it off, but Haron's tail stopped his hand.

"Not now. We've a war to wage, and I can't have my own captain beaten on the eve of battle. I'll speak to you after this."

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The army marched for a few more days, eventually reaching the edge of the plains. The grasslands turned to lines of yellow dill, kissing and prickling strips of half-harvested corn. Ormradros rushed to the front of the brigade and picked a handful of dill. He chewed on the flowers and let the feeling wash over him. He offered a bit to Haron, who took it graciously.

"You cook with this plant?" Haron asked him.

"When I was a boy, my mother put it in the salads. Gave it a nice bitter taste." Ormradros looked all around him, but all he could see was farmland and homesteads. At the edge of town, a few miles away was the manor of the Sarrys, a longhouse circled by wooden walls, a watchtower and church in its yard.

They were in the Daggerlanes, deep and proper. Here, the rows of trees melted away, and the cliffs had long receded. Plains fenced the area, but in its heartland proper, they'd find nothing of the sort. It was flatlands, barns, fat prairies, rivalling the beautiful Burrows south in West Siral. Along with corn and dill, fenced patches of crimson nettle in tiny gardens dotted the landscape, bobbing blood-red nests in a sea of green and gold.

At its south end, creeping from the old woods, was a blanket of soft vine wreathed in feathery leaves. Delicate to the touch, it wrapped the trees in a creeping mesh, dark leaves swaying in soft winds. Haron had never seen such a thing before, and the sight of it gave him solace like God had pulled a blanket over the unruly wilds.

The brigade made camp along those edges, on a small hill - one of the few left in the area - and watched the bristle of stalks as riders raced through fields and days alike and their horses greedily snapped at shin-high sprigs. Milochs grazed properly for the first time in days as their masters set stakes deep into the tired soil. With a pipe in his mouth, Ormradros waited for the sound of a rider's gallop or the sight of a company's dust.

Athos was still recovering, and Haron made no effort to visit him. Instead, the Vermite sat on a crate, looking down the roads into Daggerysarry, hoping the shimmer of a rider's torch would fly through the black.

Nobody came, and even when he went to sleep deep into the night, Ormradros still saw Haron's tiny back, sitting quietly under careless starlight, waiting for someone to sue for peace.

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Mataria survived three foul marriages and two civil wars; she assumed she'd survive this. Sitting in the Sarry seat, she'd long stewarded the family, keeping their affairs in order.

This, unfortunately, was beyond her expectations. The messages had been clear; they came out of concern, for peace, for stability, and to ensure the well-being of the Vsil. She had expected him to come with a decent company; she didn't expect him to come with an army.

In her study, lit by candlelight, Mataria kept scratching her grey head. At times she'd scream through clenched teeth into a pillow. She tried hard not to wake up Pervical; he needed his sleep. She pressed her thumb into her nipple, trying to soothe the sharp pain lingering in her breast. The boy needed to be gentler, she thought.

However, despite Haron's missive and his promises, what he did was a different story. That afternoon, a rider came to the manor, banner in his hand, black and without sigil. "I come with word from Haron of the Vsil!" He yelled. "The Daggerlanes, of the Sarry's realm, must make a decision; to be part of a new, free, just nation, or be considered an enemy at our borders! Tell me at once!"

She hoped to stay his demands as a frightened Percy shook, still too small for his brother's boots. However, no matter what offers of tea or mead or wine or women, he stayed on that damn horse, waiting, looking down at her. "Please, tell me at once!"

What impudence! Not a single shred of talk, and that rat, without manners or courtly courtesy, too quickly bears his sword at their throats!

And who was this knight he sent? Her assistant tried to coax him to a better discussion, but his request remained firm: surrender or the Daggerlanes finds itself an enemy in the Vsil. Mataria spat on such a proposition - how would she even know that Haron had the realm's interests at heart? What does the rat-general know of maintaining a country? All he knew was war, as all Vermite did. She read the stories; she knew what they did to the mountains.

She tried to buy time, and though he dismounted after a while, he grew more impatient by the days.

On the fourth day, after a belly full of wine and chicken, he latched up his armour, slapped on his aketon, and strapped on his plates. "You must tell me by tonight!"

What a terrible predicament. An army, a few miles away, fires and smoke visible from her own chambers. No matter, this wasn't the first time she ran into this problem.

She wasn't all alone. A few bannermen and men-at-arms found themselves uncomfortable with Haron's plan to tear the nobility asunder. Sarry's imprisonment shook more than she thought. It truly felt like he was going to unravel the powers of the minor lords, and if it meant dying gloriously as nobles or living as squalid paupers, a few of them chose death. Perhaps they'd be the ones to lance a blow against the rat in open combat, and they'd be the new Commandant or whatever fancy title it was.

A few lords had already shown up in Daggersarry, and the results were clear: she saw good barracks, fat and filled with men, brimmed with blades and arrows, shields shined, and hooves stamped.

They knew - they absolutely knew - that he'd march on Daggerysarry first. He had to. It was close to the capital. And that, Mataria reasoned, might've worked out to her advantage.

The moment the rider made his demands, she sent a crow to Ardalsalam. With a concerted effort, they could be marching to the Daggerlanes with cavalry within the week. If the upstart thought he found himself easy prey, it was time for her to prove him wrong. She needed just a bit of time. If she could get the reinforcements she needed from the Regent, this rebellion could be stopped now.

What a delight that would be! Mataria, the hero of the Daggerlanes, defender of the dales against the usurper! She needed to call the head watchman to coordinate with the minor lords; they needed to plan the defence.