II.

“Why isn’t there a lycanthropic police force in the Bay?” Raylin asked. As usual, it wasn’t what she had planned to say. Having finally tracked down Shield Bree, she had meant to report on her training and victory against PebbleDancer. Luckily for Raylin, she wasn’t officially part of the army, and the Shield was forgiving of her social ineptitudes.

“Your home has a troubled history with their kind,” Bree said. “We thought it best to wait. Word will spread and your representatives can request a police force when the town is ready.”

A senior officer and the only Shield in Tailso, the middle-aged woman sat stiff-backed behind her desk. Various reports were stacked in two neat piles near either corner. Chalkboards and maps covered most of the walls, the former listing the ever-changing names of trainees and troop rotations. Both of the small square windows behind Bree were open, filtering in a soft breeze and a steady ebb and flow of shouted orders, passing carts, and clacking practice swords.

“A day that will never come,” Raylin said. Motioning to the chair in front of the desk, she barely waited for Bree to nod before taking a seat. “You know why the Bay still survives? It’s not because of the Radiance or any protection it might offer. That should be why, but it’s not. The Bay survives because it takes care of itself.”

“I only know what my predecessor told me about the remnants of Sineck’s army, mostly lycanthropes, who still cause problems now and then,” Bree said, “but the Radiance has brokered a deal with the lycanthropes willing to join our civilization. I’ve seen reports of rockeater attacks in Digrif’s Bay, but there hasn’t been a death for some time. As for the brigands--your elders plus the menog tax collectors and merchants have been tightlipped about such matters.”

Knowing Raylin’s near-obsession with Gailinn, Bree didn’t say the mysterious figure’s name, but it lurked in the spaces around her words.

“I...understand the importance of reports, but I grew up surrounded by the results of Sineck’s war. My own father was a werecat and a brigand--a survivor of Sineck’s army.” Raylin’s heart ached whenever she spoke of her father. Everything she had of him was second-hand tales from her mother.

“I could use your insight. If you’re willing.” Bree leaned forward, steepling her fingers. Raylin’s first instinct was to shy away from the older woman’s intense gaze, but her time in Tailso had taught her to fight that impulse. She met Bree’s eyes and took a deep breath before speaking.

“According to him, he was young and stupid when he joined Sineck. After the war, he fled to the Bay. When he snuck into my mother’s house one night, in his words he ‘had hoped to steal anything of value he could lay a finger on, including the pretty young woman who lived there alone’. My mother discovered him first and beat him senseless with a frying pan.”

“That explains your fiery spirit,” Bree said, landing the comment somewhere between an insult and a compliment.

Raylin didn’t respond except to continue her story: “He awoke in chains and was given a choice--serve for a year and a day in chains on a fishing boat or be thrown overboard one of those same vessels, still in chains. It sounds like an easy choice, but not if you’re a lycanthrope. They fear chains as much as we fear their bite. Many others were offered that choice before and after my father. Not all of them chose as he did.

“The way my mother tells it, he never took his eyes from her as he heard the choices, nor when he accepted to serve. Her friends and family feared he would escape and come after her. She recognized the look in his eyes, knew it for the first stirrings of love, and it amused her. Every day when he came ashore, she was there, frying pan in hand, a threatening smile on her face.

“They taunted each other for a time, but always there was a longing behind it, a desire to know more about the other. One day, the frying pan was no longer a threat. My mother filled it with fried fish, sweetened potatoes, and toasted turnips.

“After a year and a day, he was free of the chains, and they were joined as husband and wife.”

Raylin couldn’t help but smile. She had grown up hearing the fairy tale version of her parents’ meeting and falling in love, and it was her first time sharing the story. It was exactly the kind of story Gnolen loved, and she wondered how many times he had asked Raylin’s mother to retell it in her absence.

“Not content with a simple fisherman’s life, he turned to brigandry. My mother didn’t know, of course, not at first. When she learned of it, despite her swollen feet and me in her belly kicking for all I was worth, she pummeled him with the frying pan once more. He promised to give it up, and they killed him for it.”

Raylin’s mother could have lied about her father’s death, chalked it up to his wild nature, but by knowing the truth, her father had become a shield, protecting her when others used him as a weapon to strike her.

Bree didn’t ask for elaboration, but Raylin could see a lingering question in the woman’s posture. She was leaning forward, pain in her eyes.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“My father left in the morning to meet his crew. My mother expected him back for lunch. He had promised it would take less than an hour to convince them. The plan was to buy his way out with money he had saved from the jobs they had pulled together.

“By midafternoon, when he still hadn’t returned, my mother began to worry. When evening settled upon the land, she suspected he was dead. It was two days before she knew for sure.

“A noise outside startled her. She hadn’t been sleeping well, her belly swollen and her feet aching. I said that earlier, didn’t I? There was a knock at the door, three sharp raps meant to wake her. On her feet by the second knock, she claims the third coincided with her water breaking. She found my father on the front stoop. I’m sorry, it’s too hard to describe the state she found him in.”

Raylin couldn’t hold back her tears, so she roughly scrubbed them away on her sleeve. She had never shared this story with anyone, not even LittleThaw or Gnolen. Telling it gave the events new life. With a shaky breath, she continued.

“If the neighbors hadn’t woken at the knocking, they were roused by my mother’s screams of labor and loss. They had to pull her away from my father’s body. The midwife was worried about losing my mother halfway through the delivery. The loss of my father seemed to have weakened her. But my father spoke, mumbled really. Hearing his voice gave her courage, but instead of pushing as the midwife instructed, she stumbled from the bed. Though her legs gave out, she crawled to my father. Holding his head in her arms, her spirit seemed to renew and strength returned to her.

“His lycanthropic gift allowed him to hold on past what a normal man could have endured. I have no doubt that was the brigands’ plan. They wanted him to die in sight of his wife, and they wanted my mother to bear witness. To know they were not to be trifled with.

“I was born on the floor. My father couldn’t open his eyes, could barely mumble a few final words, but my mother said he died with a smile on his face, sent beyond by my first cries.”

The last bit made her smile as it always had when her mother told it. Raylin knew it might be nothing more than a bard’s tale to cast her father in a favorable light, but it was one she chose to believe in with all her heart.

“So you see, it’s not the lycanthropes we fear in the Bay,” Raylin finished. “It’s the brigands.”

“Then I believe it’s time we give you the opportunity to do something about them,” a stern voice said from the doorway. Bree rose to greet the newcomer as Raylin twisted in her seat, nearly falling to the floor before standing.

“Raylin, this is Shield Yel. He’s come from Core to see you,” Bree said. She greeted Yel by holding her right arm stiffly across her chest in salute.

Yel wore the customary royal blue cloak and leather breastplate emblazoned with the Shield emblem--three concentric circles with a tree in the center. He was rail thin, and smile lines lit his face though he betrayed no emotion. Black hair combed neatly to one side, thick mustache well-groomed and oiled--he was a picture of discipline.

“It’s all about protecting your home, then?” he asked. “This quest to become a Shield?”

“Part of it,” Raylin said slowly, feeling caught in a pincer between the two Shields. The story of her parents had been a tool to sway Bree’s opinion about a lycanthropic police force. She hadn’t imagined anyone else might have listened and couldn’t hide her embarrassment at learning a complete stranger, and one sent to possibly make her a Shield, had heard the tale.

“What’s the other part?” he asked, mouth twitching slightly upwards at her obvious discomfort.

“Protecting places like the Bay,” Raylin said. She took a deep breath and stood a little straighter, silently thanking Shay as she centered herself. “We’re not the only backwoods town preyed upon by brigands, bandits, or worse.”

“What if I told you there were more important things than brigands?” Yel asked. “What if you become a Shield, but Grand Shield SplitLog sends you to the east where the quartz burrowers have raised Edore’s banner once more? Perhaps you’ll go to the south where a border dispute between webfooted tribes threatens to erupt into a small war?”

Yel was the first male authority figure Raylin had answered to since leaving home. She suspected he had been chosen for exactly that reason.

“I assumed I would have a say in where to serve,” Raylin said. She was back on the practice field, balancing on one foot, fighting not to tip over. “Maybe I could convince the Grand Shield to--”

“Unlikely,” Yel said. That single word smashed into her like an unguarded blow from a practice sword.

“Then I would hire mercenaries,” she blurted, revealing plans she had never wanted to explore. Becoming a Shield was the only thing that mattered. It was the means of achieving all she had ever wanted. “Or I would hunt them alone.”

“You went to the trouble of challenging and beating seven hobs, simply to become a bounty hunter? A mercenary leader?” Yel’s stare was like a rip tide, threatening to pull her away from shore. Raylin focused once more on the breathing exercises she had learned from Shay and calmed her mind, feeling the rise and fall of her chest between each of Yel’s sentences. “I heard it was your dream to be a Shield.”

Raylin had grown up being laughed at for her ideals, but no one in Tailso had mocked her convictions. Many shared them, and those who didn’t at least respected them. Yel was twisting all her plans into knots, suggesting that her lifelong dream would come at a cost she wasn’t willing to pay. He was also baiting her, obviously trying to knock her off balance, so she took the bait, curious to see how he would react.

“To fight injustice!” she growled through clenched teeth. “To stop the kinds of monsters who stalk the edges of the Radiance, unmakers through and through. They believe themselves outside the law, too wicked to fear punishment. Not because I want to be a hero or rise through the political structure like you, Bree, and so many other Shields.”

“Interesting how you referred to your father’s lycanthropy as a gift when so many consider it a curse, and yet you refer to the brigands as monsters. Very telling.” He faced Bree. “You were right. I do like her,” Yel said and smiled. It touched every part of his face then vanished when he turned his attention to Raylin once more. “Now then, Candidate Raylin, we’ve designed a test for you. If you’ll follow me.”