“I can’t believe you survived all this time. You’ve lived quite an interesting life, Rell.”

The young man, still as stone-faced as he ever was, merely quirked up one corner of his mouth and smirked.

“I find it a little difficult to take that from you, Tyron Steelarm. To think I was standing next to slayer royalty on Victory Road.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“You can’t deny it. Look at how this lot changed their tune when they found out what your name was.”

The Necromancer looked back at the rest of Rell’s team, following behind the two of them, far more trusting now that they knew who he was. It had come out in bits and pieces after he’d recognised the former rat, who’d known him by ‘Lukas.’

“Feels like a lifetime ago we were sitting on the side of that road. Rats trying to get picked by slayer teams heading out to the rifts,” Tyron reflected. “Cilla was there as well. I hadn’t thought about her in a long time.”

“Cilla…” Rell shook his head. “She was the only other rat I’d seen with potential. I always wondered what happened to her. I assume she died on the rift, or during the break.”

“She… she died. I found her and the rest of her team in the woods around the rift.”

An unpleasant memory. The scene of the battle, the dead kin scattered around, a full team of fallen slayers, and their young, aspiring rat, torn apart.

Rell breathed out.

“That’s a shame. She was a bright spark surrounded by withered shadows in those days.”

He grimaced and gestured with his head toward the skeletons around them.

“Is she…?”

Tyron frowned, then realised what he meant.

“Oh. No. No, she isn’t. I buried her.”

He hadn’t been able to bring himself to do it. The reason he’d gone into those woods in the first place was exactly for that purpose, to hunt down the remains of fallen slayers so he could turn them into skeletons. In his head, he’d imagined finding bodies weeks or more old, mostly rotted, even just skeletons with scraps of flesh clinging to them. Faced with the prospect of butchering a young woman he’d known when she was alive, he’d crumbled and thrown up everything in his stomach before burying her.

If he found her today… it would be different, a thought he didn’t linger on for long.

“Sorry I asked,” Rell said. “I understand, you need to make the most of your Class, and it isn’t as though you asked to be a Necromancer. I don’t begrudge you having to utilise the remains of the dead.”

Tyron eyed the man next to him with a critical eye. When he’d first met Rell, they’d spent four days side by side on Victory Road, eating dust as slayer teams marched past, never so much as meeting their eye. It was only on the fourth day he’d been picked up by Dove’s team, though the Summoner hadn’t been with them. At the time, Rell had been a simply dressed, serious and oddly disciplined young man. Where everyone else had sat, he’d stood to attention, showing his grit and determination in the hopes it would help get picked.

Obviously, it had worked. He’d already been out and come back alive when Tyron had first met him, and now he was here.

“I hope you don’t mind if I ask you a few questions,” he said.

“Ask away,” Rell nodded.

Tyron considered for a moment.

“You aren’t branded, are you?”

Rell snorted and shook his head.

“No, I’m not, Gods forbid.”

“So that means you’re prepared… to be part of a revolution?”

He didn’t answer for a time, measuring his words.

“When your parents… Magnin and Beory died… let’s say that tempers were high. Many slayers threw down their weapons and pledged to make the magisters pay the same day they found out. I also wasn’t happy with how your family had been treated, and nobody bought their lies about it for a moment, but more than that, I also have reasons to see things change in this realm.”

“Then you know what my next question is going to be.”

“I suppose so,” Rell sighed.

“Class and level?” Tyron grinned.

“It’s rude to ask people their level,” Rell frowned, but a slight smile gave the game away. He’d given Tyron this warning once before, many years ago. “You might be surprised at how closely our paths aligned in those early days. I was also on the run, though not quite as hunted as you.”

Tyron’s brow went up.

“I find that quite surprising. Now I’m even more curious.”

“Bard,” Rell replied shortly. “I Awakened as a bard.”

There was silence between them for a minute.

“Not going to run away?” Rell asked.

“What? No, I’m just surprised,” Tyron replied honestly, then his thoughts caught up. “Oh, the mental influence. It shouldn’t work on me, I’ve placed several layers of protection around my mind.”

He’d be foolish not to, considering everything he’d been through.

A bard, of all things. That was truly unexpected. It made Rell’s story all the more remarkable. It was a minor miracle he’d even made it to Woodsedge to start a new life as a rat. Combined with the added miracle of his surviving the break, his story was truly something remarkable.

“You didn’t much favour living a life of luxury?” Tyron asked.

Rell shot him a disgusted look and Tyron shrugged.

“Slayers have to reach gold before they get that kind of treatment. It isn’t as if people who yearn for that treatment don’t exist.”

“No thank you,” Rell said curtly. “The thought of living my life with a chain around my neck didn’t appeal. So I did the same thing I imagine you did, I ran.”

“And this team is fine with it? They don’t mind having you around?”

“They trust me,” Rell said, grim-faced. “I do everything I can to suppress my influence and focus my efforts on my sub-classes.”

“You could just give it up, relinquish the Bard Class.”

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“I’ve thought about it. Many times. The stats are good, and it can be surprisingly easy to level. Some of the abilities are handy for a slayer to have. Even so, I would have thrown it away a long time ago, but the group persuaded me to keep it.”

Tyron turned back to speak to the others.

“See that hill there? The one split in half? That’s where my camp is.”

“Is it clear?” the scout asked him.

Tyron concentrated for a moment.

“It is for the moment. Kin do try to run through it, but most go around. I’ve got skeletons in position to kill the ones who get through the wards.”

“Let’s pick up the pace, then. A little rest is just what we need.”

Shortly after, the group stepped into the ravine, and just like that, there was a barrier between them and the danger of Nagrythyn. A paper-thin barrier, and some undead, but a barrier nonetheless. It was interesting to watch the change come over the group, the release of tension, the slight easing in their posture. A little of their wariness bled out of them and Tyron could only imagine how draining it was to be out in the field for so long.

Slayers could spend weeks at a time beyond the rifts, though it wasn’t recommended. Even Rell relaxed a little, though his iron self control didn’t slip much.

At least now Tyron knew why he kept himself on such a short leash.

“I’ll try to keep the skeletons out of your way,” he told his guests, “but keep in mind I’m not controlling them directly all the time. They won’t bother you; just step to the side if you see one walking towards you.”

He gestured toward the middle of the ravine.

“My camp is there. Feel free to set yourselves up wherever you please, there’s no pressure to join me. This side is much safer than the other, so I’d recommend resting here.”

“We’ll do that, then,” the scout nodded, grateful, yet still keeping his guard up.

Tyron had no issue with that. Trusting a Necromancer you just met seemed like a quick way to get yourself murdered. He waved a hand to the group and left to head towards his own tent, leaving them to their business. To his surprise, after a moment's hesitation, Rell followed him.

Once he reached his modest camp, Tyron sat, his back against the wall of the ravine, pulled an apple from his pack, and waited until Rell, despite exhibiting some reluctance, sat alongside him.

“Hard to imagine Magnin and Beory’s son turning out to be a Necromancer.”

“Imagine how I felt.”

It was interesting talking to Rell. This was someone he’d first met before everything had reached the point of no return. There wasn’t anything remarkable about the time they’d spent together, just idle conversation while waiting in the beating sun. Yet he felt as if a strange thread connected the two of them. To think they had both landed in Woodsedge under such similar circumstances, and now found themselves fighting on the same side.

“When my parents died, right in front of me, they told me why, and how, and who was responsible. Explained everything, so I didn’t have to live my life guessing. They wanted me to live out a peaceful life, had made arrangements for me. I could hide from the magisters, take up a false identity, be protected by their friends, and just… live out my days.”

Tyron shook his head.

“I refused. I refused then, and I refuse now. My mother and father didn’t deserve to die that way, after everything they’d done. They were heroes. I’m going to kill every single person responsible, burn it all down to the ground. It won’t stop when the western province falls. Once that happens, it only accelerates. The other provinces get involved, the emperor gets involved. Everything becomes harder at that point, but I won’t stop then. I won’t stop until it’s all gone.”

“If you do that, a lot of people are going to suffer. Not just the ones you want to hurt, but everyone else. The people without a choice.”

Tyron turned his head and looked Rell dead in the eye.

“I don’t care,” he said, simply, and held up the red fruit in his hand. “If the empire is an apple and the people are its flesh, I’ll cut through as much as I have to until I get to the core. Nothing else matters to me.”

He raised his hand and took a bite. The skin crunched under the force of his teeth, releasing juice which ran down his chin.

“And you have to do the same,” he said, while chewing. “There’s no other way out for you. Either you die, or you keep surviving until the empire no longer exists.”

His companion sat in silence for a time, absorbing this, until he nodded.

“I know,” he said quietly, “I’ve always known that, but I suppose I’ve never really believed it was possible. I wanted to live out my dream, to be helpful, and useful. I wanted to contribute, and save this realm from the kin. When it seemed as though the Awakening had stripped that chance from me, I was devastated.”

“Bards are helpful.”

“I refuse to live in chains, singing to distract the people from their plight.”

“You don’t have to sing,” Tyron said. “Some bards only talk.”

“Shut up.”

The Necromancer continued to eat, chewing thoughtfully as he considered what might happen next.

“How many others are there, like you?”

“Bards?”

“No. I mean unbranded slayers. People getting trained up to fight.”

“A few dozen. Why?”

Tyron pulled a face.

“We’re going to need a hell of a lot more than that.”

“There are more. There’s others being trained in almost every keep in the province.”

“And how do you know that?”

“Slayers talk. They’ve been networking for years, though not in an organised way.”

“And what are you going to do?” Tyron said directly. “As an unbranded Bard, you’re pretty much as illegal as I am. What’s your plan?”

Rell’s face hardened.

“I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing. I’m fighting, getting strong, killing kin. I’ve got two sub-classes dedicated to fighting now, Marksman and Field Scout.”

“You’ve already advanced them?” Tyron asked, surprised.

“I’ve worked hard.”

“Have you figured out a third sub-class yet?”

Rell eyed him.

“Not yet,” he admitted.

“It should be charisma-based.”

This wasn’t what Rell wanted to hear, but Tyron continued to speak before he could say anything.

“You’ve got two agility-based Classes. Sure, you can shoot some arrows, throw some daggers, make yourself useful in the field, but you’ll never be as good as someone who Awakened to a primary fighting Class. You already know that.

“But that’s fine. You can fight, you can help, good. But taking another combat sub-class isn’t going to make that much of a difference. You’ll go from a mediocre slayer, to a reasonable one, after you manage to advance it. Instead, you need to lean into your strength and pick something that enhances the benefits of your primary Class.”

“I don’t want to be a bard.”

The words were spoken calmly, but there was a tightness to Rell that spoke to how distasteful he found the very idea. Tyron couldn’t blame him. Bards were equally as feared as they were respected. Men and women with such magnetic charisma it bordered on mind control. For the safety of the people, they were escorted everywhere they went, considered a necessary evil. A song or story from a normal person was only that, but from the mouth of an experienced bard? A song could entrance an entire village, transport them from this dangerous world to another time and place. A story could shift their hearts in their chests, lift their spirits and fill them with pride of purpose, putting farmers out into fields with determination burning in their spirit.

They could even quiet the flames of outrage in a gold ranked slayer, restless and angry about being locked up.

Slayers weren’t the only ones who lived in the birdcage.

“I don’t think you should be a bard,” Tyron said, “I think you should be a weapon.”

He pointed a finger at Rell.

“Get your main Class to gold rank, and you’ll be the most effective member in the entire rebellion. Even more than me.”

“I don’t think so. How many skeletons can you support?”

Tyron thought for a moment.

“Possibly a thousand.”

“You’re a one man army. How is a bard supposed to match up to that?”

“Because you can talk your way into a fortress and walk out with the key. Because you could turn enemies into allies with just a few words. Because the magisters will certainly use people like you against us, and we need someone on our side who can counter that influence.”

“You want me to do that? Go around warping minds with just a few words, twisting people into something they weren’t before? It’s disgusting.”

“I don’t have a lot of sympathy, Rell. You know what I have to do when I get a dead body? I butcher it. I cut the skin, muscle and tendons away with my own hands. Then and only then can I make them into a skeleton. Clearly, you don’t like bards and what they can do. You probably have some experience in your life regarding them. Get over it. This is a war.”

Rell turned his eyes on him, cold, with a low burning rage in them.

“You want me to convince people to work with us? Fine. Help me and my team, right here and now. We’ve been tracking that massive kin for days, and if it isn’t brought down, there’s a chance it breaks through and wrecks Woodsedge all over again. Even if it doesn’t…”

“It’ll widen the rift again,” Tyron nodded, then sighed. “I had a feeling it might come to this.”

He stood and tossed the remains of his apple onto the ground.

“Better go and talk to the rest of the team, then.”