It was midnight when the Mayor reached the Fallen Chapel, a ruin that none but a few of the inner circle of Fellow’s Glen knew about. No one knew what its original purpose had been; It just looked decrepit and sinister, so they called it the Fallen Chapel. It was a place for clandestine meetings and unsavory deals, or so he was told by Winston. He shivered as he approached the shadowy stonework. It had been difficult enough to follow the markers carved into trees, but he surely didn’t wish to approach using the Faerie Road, to which the Fallen Chapel sat adjacent . That, surely, would have been suicide.

A soft orange glow flickered inside, shining through cracks in the masonry of the windowless building. He gingerly stepped around the foliage that grew creeping beside the dark stone and peered in through the door.

A man sat there, his legs crossed before a small fire keeping him pleasantly warm on a strangely chilly spring night. It was surprising the room wasn’t filled with smoke but the mayor secretly wished it was; the man’s face was a patchwork of scars. He wore skins of all kinds and a necklace of teeth and claws. In some spots where his clothing was worn or fell away, Hardstahd noticed, something shone dimly in the flickering light. Ringmail. So this man wasn’t a savage or a hermit.

“You got the payment?”

The mayor begrudgingly dangled a delicate cloth back, careful not to touch the ragged mercenary as he handed it over.

“I don’t understand why you wanted peppercorn and clove. It’s a lot, nearly my whole store’s worth, but it can’t be that valuable.”

The man sneered - or smiled - it was hard to tell. Something about his mouth was...unsettling. “There’s a lot your rich folk don’t understand. As a professional courtesy, I’ll tell you. See, we go on the road weeks on end on these ‘errands.’ And we’re all experienced hunters - rangers, most of us. Left over from the war. ’Course you don’t remember much of that, I’m sure . I expect you were safe in whatever nice house you live in.” He sniffed. When Hardstahd offered no reply, he continued. “We go in and out of the country, up and around every province you’ve heard of. I must’ve crossed into Orai about a million times, bless them, and they have never seen this much spice in their life.”

“So what, you trade it?”

The mercenary smiled. “Spice like this is good for three reasons. One, you can always sell it for more than its weight in gold. And it’s light, so instead of carrying around a sack of glittering coins that’ll get your throat slit, you’re just carrying around cooking supplies. Two, most fences worth a shite will use this as a currency, sort of like a bank note based on weight. You can trade all sorts of things for a bag of this. The third is the most important: Like I said, me and my friends are all rangers. Former, at least. We don’t work for the money. We do it ‘cuz it’s fun. When we need to eat, we hunt. And to be honest, after a while rabbit and venison start to taste like Hal’s sooty asshole without a little spice.

He laughed.

Hardstahd gave a nervous chuckle. “Yes well...I look forward to seeing your results.”

The stranger gave him a craftly sook. “Sooner than later, I ‘spect. When Winston reached out to me, I sent one of our packs ahead to the north of the province. If your boy’s heading to the Academy, they’ll head him off and sniff him out.”

The mayor raised his eyebrows in surprise. “That’s very efficient.”

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Grel the Huntsman smiled. “We take pride in our work. Now, in the spirit of partnership, drink with me.” It was then that Hardstahd realized what had been unsettling to him this whole time: every single tooth that was visible in the man’s mouth had been sharpened to a point.

When the toast was done, the mayor quickly excused himself and retreated. He hoped that whatever he had drunk with Grel had been wine and not some form of cleansing solution. A round faced blonde guard waited for him outside.

“Thank you for assisting me today, Nathan.”

The young man perked up, his sycophantic face squishing into a grin in the moonlight. “Of course. There’re so few true patriots these days and I’m on the side of justice, Mayor sir.”

“Yes, well...come along.” Hardstahd was impatient to get home to his warm bed and he had spent enough time gabbing about spices. Perhaps they could stop by the river and he could wash out the taste of that awful grog...

“Traitor,” Johan murmured to himself as the mayor and the younger guardsman retreated past the brush behind which he was hiding and back toward the village. He had tailed them here, all the way from the village gate. They hadn’t been very stealthy, to tell the truth, but he was sure that Nathan had been taken along to ensure that they weren’t followed. His complicity was not entirely surprising - the guard was made up of volunteers, not hirelings. Nathan was the kind of man who would do anything for authority, which was likely why he had volunteered. The captain would have to watch him closely from now on. More importantly, he had to get back to the others and let them know the severity of the situation.

Suddenly, Johan heard a rustle in the bushes beside him. A shadow rose up, the glint of silver in the moonlight at its zenith. He dove to one side and rolled, drawing his own long dagger by instinct; the low hanging branches and high brush here made it impossible to wield a sword here. The shadow dropped into a crouch, nearly disappearing from view, before it silently lunged. Johan barely had time to block with his own dagger before his attacker changed direction and slashed at him again. Whoever this was, they were a trained veteran warrior.

Johan backpedaled, trying to give himself space for a counterattack. The other man continued slashing and lunging without repose. Undaunted, the guardsman switched his grip, reversing the dagger so that the blade shielded the length of his arm. He saw the glint of the other man’s knife as it approached his face, pivoted, and slashed up with his own, striking his assailant’s wrist. A muffled cry of pain, a spray of warm blood and the knife dropped into the brush. He heard the sound of something rolling away from them on the leaves. Likely a thumb. “I’ll kill you,” is all the man said, much louder than Johan would have liked considering the man in the ruins was likely his friend.

He used this moment to drive his shoulder into the other man, knocking him down. He let the fall carry himself as well, quickly straddling the assassin and pinning him to the ground.

Without pause, he stabbed his blade deep, just below the sternum,and clapped a hand over the man’s face to silence him. There was a cough, warm and wet, against the mask and the struggle lessened to a quiver. He pulled the blade out with a twist and then all was still.

There was a shout from the hovel. “Harris! You out there?” Shit.

The Guardsman took a moment to look over the body, which was bloody difficult because he could barely see in the dark. Thankfully, the mask covered all but the wide, horrified eyes. He imagined himself wearing such a mask, hastily wrapping himself in Harris’s cloak. He recalled the would-be assassin’s voice. Quiet and a bit raspy.

“I said, you there?” Grel called as he walked out of the hovel, into the road.

“Aye aye. I’m here, I said.” Harris stalked out of the brush and stood there, managing to look irritated beneath the mask. “We done?” he asked in a gruff tone.

“Yes, we’re done. I thought I heard something. Everythin' clear from where you stood?"

So Harris had been a lookout. It was lucky he hadn't noticed Johan sooner, then. "All clear. The rich bloke is gone."

"Let’s head on back to camp, eh?” He clapped him on the back and began to walk down the Faerie road, the opposite way from the way Kel had fled earlier.

Shit indeed, Johan thought to himself as he walked alongside Grel down the path, leaving Harris’ lifeless corpse behind in the brush.