The baron offered him a pour of wine from one of the servants. It seemed like the man had already gotten a head start on Dallen. And Dallen hadn’t been one to turn down drinks, even if they were from bloated worms like the man across from him. Especially if those drinks were probably the only alcohol in the town that didn’t taste like horse piss.

Dallen drained the cup, eyeing the feast laid out before them. Once more, they were the only two in attendance, and once more, there was enough food for ten people to stuff themselves. All sorts of roasted meats, potatoes, vegetables, and fine breads and dessert cakes. Dallen wondered if the baron rolled out these kinds of feasts to impress Dallen, and solidify his place at the baron’s side, or if every one of the baron’s meals was like this. Dallen didn’t know which option infuriated him more.

He took another glass, and the baron nodded in approval through his wine-reddened face. The man was going on about something or other.

“…the finest meal you’ve seen in months I’d wager,” Baron Prout said. He gestured across the table with the kind of wild swagger that only fragile pride and a fair bit of drink could provide. “Finest anyone in a hundred miles has seen! This is the kind of thing we can look forward to, my friend. Why, I’d say this is probably the best meal you’ve had since Callia, isn’t it?”

Dallen downed another large gulp. It was decent wine, by the standards of a town like this.

Anything that doesn’t make you go blind…

“It’s a lot better than anything Callia is offering now.” Dallen stared down at his cup, and the swirling, dark wine within.

The baron coughed awkwardly, and his voice fell to a grim tone.

“Well I, uh…yes, I suppose it is.”

There was a moment of silence. The baron finished his own glass, swirled the last few little drops around, waited a little longer.

“I’ve…never lived in anything much bigger than a place like this,” the baron said. “What was Callia like…before? Was it really like the stories?”

Dallen had to keep his grip from tightening. Wouldn’t want to crush the baron’s fine, fancy cups, make a whole mess of a nice dinner, would he?

“Callia is dead. Doesn’t matter much what it used to be.”

All of the baron’s bravado was gone now, like a candle snuffed out.

“Hmph. Well…suppose folks don’t like talking about the past much. Unless it’s the one none of us have ever seen. The bloody perfect world before the Final Battle.” He shook his head, and a servant came by to refill his cup again. He shooed the other man away once it was full.

“That’s the only past anyone wants to hear about,” the baron continued, looking more miserable with every word. “The glory of the old Empyre. You could take the great stone roads from Leyenfell to Londoria by foot and not have to worry a wink about the coin in your pocket being stolen.”

The baron gave a grim laugh and looked around.

“You ever think that all might be a load of shit? Look at this place. How could it ever really be that world we hear about?”

“The whole world, from end to end, was building towards war for a thousand years,” Dallen replied. “If you want to know what I think…those stories of peace and prosperity are fairy tales. Something we tell so that people can fawn over what they never got to have. Every place, every time, has its own problems. But still…it had to have been better than this.”

“Aye,” said the baron, his eyes growing dark as he stared at one of the banners overhead. “Had to have been better than this. How could it not have?” He took another big swig of wine, far more than he needed. But that was just the trouble, wasn’t it? The more wine you had, the more you wanted, especially with conversation as grim as this.

“Ever since I became baron here, I could see it. The misery, the…fucking hopelessness. Seeping into the town’s bones like some deep rot. It was miserable to look at, to hear, to smell, to taste with the shit they try to pass off as food. Just a bunch of people sitting around waiting to die.”

The baron’s eyes were distant now. Full of weight and empty despair.

“That’s the world, baron,” said Dallen. “Haverren ain’t special.”

“What in the deep hell was I supposed to do about it?” the baron asked, as if he had barely heard Dallen. “Pass some fucking laws, telling everyone to be happy? Command them to work even harder, to till the land for more crops? Patch the damn pieces of the broken earth with my own hands?”

He looked at those hands, which were shaking now. From drink, or something else? The food was getting cold.

“For a while…for a while, I thought if I followed the old ways, tried to hold order, tried to lead with pride and conviction, that everything would work out somehow. That it would help.” He clenched his meaty fists together. “Every year it got worse. Every. Year. Without fail.”

“The world is slowly dying,” Dallen said, taking a drink. The world had that faint wobbling to it that happened after a few cups. There were only a few drops left in his cup that trickled down to his lips. Again, the baron did not seem to hear him.

“You can’t depend on the old ways anymore,” the baron said, with a growing grim resolve that did little to push away the despair in his voice. It made a foul mixture “The last bloody knight of Callia should know that, after all. That city followed the old ways of the Empyre. Tried to train the heroes of the new world, to be sent to Leyenfell and become the next bloody Paladins. Look where that got it. It crumbled just like all the rest would.”

Dallen felt a twinge at that. As always happened, the man was speaking of things he had no concept of.

“Callia did not collapse because of the old ways,” Dallen said, beginning to hear the surly slur of drunkenness in his speech. “It was consumed.” The cup bent a little bit under the grip of the Maker’s hand. “Something much darker tainted it, seeped in and poisoned it from the inside.”

He remembered his city burning. Covered in the blood of friend and foe alike. Him most of all.

“Something dark…” Prout said, finally having heard him. “And yet all the strength of their knights did nothing. Their conviction did nothing. It wasn’t enough to save anyone.”

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Dallen couldn’t retort that. Because as much as he loathed the baron right now, and loathed this whole conversation, Prout was right.

“Aye,” Dallen said quietly. “They followed the old ways, and now they all have an ashen grave.”

The lucky ones had an ashen grave.

“We’re all just clinging to something that will never be again,” Prout said. “Clinging to a corpse.” He shook his head, and spoke again, quieter this time. “Maybe we just need to burn the whole bloody thing down. Start over.”

Dallen looked up at the baron. At the sad man who had deflated from all sense of false bravado that he’d started the meal with.

“Is that what you’re doing here, Prout? Burning it all down and starting again? That what the plan is, giving the town over to Hadrir and his men?” He felt a tinge of anger, a hint of accusation creep into his voice. He could not hold it back. He did not want to hold it back anymore. Not for this miserable shit.

The baron’s face twisted, looking at his wine cup.

“What in the deep hell am I supposed to do?” The baron asked again, as much to Dallen as to himself. “This is the way the world is bending, Dallen. Haverren will have to bend with it, or break. It’s either take this chance now…or throw away any chance we might have later.”

Prout shook his head. His voice had something else in it now: fear. All of his emotions were twisting up and spilling out at once.

“Are you afraid of them, baron?” Dallen asked. It was a quiet question, but tipped with venom.

The baron’s eyes flashed with anger, momentarily overpowering the other emotions. His face grew redder than the alcohol had already made it.

“Watch your fucking tongue, there. I’m still the baron of this place. Don’t you forget that.”

“Ohh,” said Dallen. “I see. You’re the baron. You hold the power. And it’s like you said: you’re on Hadrir’s good side, too, aren’t you? What are you so damn afraid of, then?”

“You think I’m an idiot?” Prout asked, voice raising. “I know what lawless men do, Osterval. I can’t change them, any more than I can change the damn wind! I’ve done what I can here.”

“What have you done again?” Dallen’s own voice was raising, but the fire in his belly from the wine was fueling his flames. And he didn’t care what bridges they spread to and burned down. “Handed the town over to those lawless men on a silver platter, it sounds like.”

“Either I hand it over, or they take it you stubborn jackass! One way or a bloody other, they’ll come in here and take what they damn well want. That’s the way of the bloody world! Those that can swim with the current stay afloat — and if we try to help those that can’t, we get dragged down too.”

Dallen stared at the man for a long moment. He saw the baron for all that he was now. He had once thought Prout was an overly-proud, brash man who thought himself powerful and cunning, as most lords did. Now Dallen saw the truth. Prout was a coward and a weakling, so terrified of the coming threat that he would bend over and prostrate himself before it just to avoid any harm. And throw all of his own people in the way of harm in doing so.

And the worst part was that what the baron said echoed so many thoughts that Dallen had thought himself before. His stomach turned unpleasantly. Rage and disgust threatened to boil up from inside of him and erupt, either in screams or vomit.

Dallen stood quickly and shakily, sending some of the utensils clattering.

“Thank you for the hospitality, Baron Prout.” His voice was cold as weathered steel now, hiding the roiling feelings within.

The baron’s face twisted with a grimace that was somehow both furious and pitiable at the same time.

“Don’t you fucking look at me like that,” the baron said. “Don’t you dare look at me like that, you bastard. What else am I supposed to do?”

“Grow a spine,” Dallen said. “I’d start there. Make a damn decision for once. One that isn’t handing your people over to a mad dog.”

The baron slammed one meaty fist into the table, toppling his own wine cup.

“You slimy shit,” he spat. “I should have left you in that rotten cell to die. I ought to send the bloody guards after you to shove you back in there!”

Dallen gave the baron a baleful smile that brought him no joy.

“I welcome it, Prout. It’ll be a few less bastards in this town.”

“Yeah?” the baron said, voice rising again. “How about when Hadrir arrives tomorrow? You see how far that attitude gets you! I’ll look forward to seeing him cut you in half down the middle!”

Hadrir arrives tomorrow. Dallen’s right hand clenched into a fist that could have turned a stone to dust within.

“Sorry to rob you of a show,” Dallen said sourly, “but I’ll be gone by then.”

The baron’s eyes lit up with bloodshot fury.

“Oh that’s rich! You think I’m the weak one, and you’re just going to tuck your tail between your legs and run!”

“Running is better than rolling over.” Dallen’s voice was level against the baron’s shouts, but just as disdainful.

“Oh don’t try to feed me that shit! They’re both the acts of cowards, and you know it! Don’t act like you’re any better than me, knight of Callia.”

Dallen’s right arm was shaking now. If he held this conversation any longer, his voice would not remain level. And his fist would end up punching a hole through the baron’s beet-red face.

Part of him wanted to do just that so strongly that he felt he had to physically restrain himself. Why not just cut the baron down here? And all his miserable guards, for that matter?

You could do it…you could cut them all down. You fought through two dozen rounds of the best fighters in all the Shattered Heights. You could stay here, cut them all down, face Hadrir’s men, fight him, kill him, BREAK—

Dallen pivoted on his heel, as if turning away from those thoughts. His head pounded suddenly, feeling like it had been struck. If he stayed any longer, he’d do something he would regret.

Two guards were in the entrance, having heard the commotion. They stood with spears held reluctantly up to their chests, as if ready to level them. Dallen walked right past. The guards shot nervous glances at him, then at the baron.

But the baron was a coward. He didn’t want a real fight in his hall. He just wanted to yell. So he did just that, and Dallen walked past the guards without incident.

“Walk away, you fucking coward!” the baron roared. “Don’t you act like you’re better than me! Wandering around, drinking and pissing about with no bloody purpose, you miserable shit!” He threw a wine goblet against the stone wall, where it smashed and clattered to the ground. “You don’t know what it’s like you damn bastard! You don’t know! I’ll not stand here and—”

It was rambling now, as Dallen walked down the corridor. Rambling that echoed through the cold stone walls of the great oversized keep. Dallen wanted to put a fist through those walls, to rip this whole damnable place to the ground. And something deep within told him to do so.

He just had to get away from here. From this keep, then this town.

To go where? a doubtful voice asked.

Dallen shook his head, world lurching from the drinks. It didn’t matter where next. What mattered was getting out of here.

The echoed shouts of the baron followed him far longer than he would have thought possible. They seemed to follow him his whole way down to the center of town.