‘I don’t want to go.’

Regeda’s initial reaction to my invitation on the quest to Vizonia to steal the Ashwood Blade was not what I’d been hoping for. We could always go without her, of course, but I’d feel more comfortable with another woman on the mission because we would likely need to go undercover. It would also make more sense for well-to-do people like the high-ranking monks from Trent we were pretending to be to travel with an attendant.

‘I’m not going to force you since it’ll be dangerous, but I’d be much happier if you came with us.’

‘It’s not the danger,’ Regeda explained, ‘I just don’t think it’s right. The Vizonian Order are Cha’s worldly representatives.’

‘I told you, they’re enslaving people and starting wars. Ioran has turned them into a powerful cult.’

‘I know you said that, but I’ve been to the monasteries in Hollowhold my whole life and they’ve always been kind to me. And even if they do the wrong thing sometimes, that doesn’t mean we should… undermine them. Isn’t that like undermining Cha and Yoru?’

I shook my head. ‘I think Cha knows better than that. Besides, we’re not going to burn Vizonia down or anything. We just want the Ashwood Blade back.’

‘I don’t know…’ Regeda twirled her hair in contemplation. Despite her earlier protestations she was clearly afraid even though I’d already assured her that we had every intention to return, with the presence of the three most important people in Ebonreach as proof.

‘You would be entitled to hazard pay.’

‘Fine. Fine! I’ll do it, since you say we’ll be back today or tomorrow and there shouldn’t be any fighting. But don’t ask me to hurt any monks or anything.’

‘I won’t,’ I promised her.

I spent some time that evening with Regeda, Tadruk, Alum, and Timoth planning the mission, but we preferred to leave the very next morning rather than drag out our planning over a number of days. Our goal was to slip out and back before anyone knew we were gone, and before our absence adversely affected the administration of the realm.

Therefore, at dawn’s first light we gathered in the fourth floor meeting room. I’d had the guards throw out the homeless man who’d been staying in my chambers because we needed to occupy the space with soldiers and Mistress Pulfae in case we needed urgent support. He’d overstayed his welcome anyway, and I was sick of his alcoholic stench. How hard was it to aim the bottle inside your mouth anyway?

We all dressed in Vizonian monk frocks confiscated from buildings quickly and unexpectedly abandoned when I’d banished all Vizonians from Ebonreach, except for Regeda who dressed as normal. I’d had her braid my hair as would be expected of me in such a public and high-society place as the Vizonian archives, but I kept it more functional than beautiful in case I needed to do any running.

Finally, Tadruk summoned his portal. He stuck his head through it carefully, then he passed out of the room entirely. The rest of us followed suit, Regeda last of all.

Immediately, I was gripped by some strange emotions. Nostalgia is probably the best-fitting term for them. It wasn’t unlike stepping into my own portal realm, with green grass all around and a bright blue sky overhead, but the scale was massively out of sync. Instead of a few feet of ground surrounded by a sheer fall into the void, the perfectly flat land of Vizonia allowed me to see indefinitely in each direction, at least theoretically. In reality, there were constructions obfuscating my view, particularly directly ahead of us where an entire settlement was visible a couple of miles away. The absolute lack of any complex foliage or wildlife marked Vizonia as being distinct from Halivaara. There was an eerie silence over the land.

‘Come on,’ Tadruk urged us. ‘Real Vizonians wouldn’t stand around gawping all day.’

‘He’s right,’ I said. ‘Let’s do this.’

We walked towards the settlement. Under our billowing robes we all carried weapons: swords for Timoth and Alum, and daggers for the rest of us. I encouraged the party to loosen up; we’d be spotted as imposters instantly if we entered the archives looking so wary. We had to be casual.

A few hundred metres into our walk we passed an artificial ridge, giving us vision over the other side of it, and my jaw dropped.

‘What are those?’ I asked.

Timoth and Alum already had their hands on their swords, and Tadruk hissed at them.

‘They’re a common sight in Vizonia, you need to relax. Now, or we’ll be spotted!’ he insisted, and he was right. A number of people were now within sight of us, milling around the edge of the settlement we were entering.

They didn’t seem at all phased by what lay beyond the ridge, which shocked me because it contained a fenced ring of about thirty monsters. For with what other word could such creatures be described? They were at least eight foot tall; hulking bipedal brutes with sinewy red flesh that appeared as muscle unbound by skin, all encased in custom-designed iron armour. Their spiked shoulders were as wide as a man is tall, and their faces were part-reptillian, part-insectoid, and part-daemonic. Engraved upon their monstrous visage were glowing yet cold blue slits which were clearly some sort of alien eye. I was glad they weren’t looking at me.

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

‘What are they?’ I asked Tadruk, trying not to stare.

‘They are Torak warriors. They are the native inhabitants of Vizonia,’ he explained, as though it was the simplest thing in the world. I supposed he was doing better than the rest of us at appearing nonchalant.

‘Isn’t Vizonia just a particularly large portal realm?’ Timoth asked. ‘I haven’t seen any of those in my portal.’

‘Nor ours,’ I added.

‘You have heard stories of bones and other remains though? You may have even seen some yourself. Those are from the Torak. The Vizonian understanding of the portal realms is that a new portal does not create a new island, it reveals a portion of a pre-existing otherworldly continent. The Torak try to stay away from such lands, and since humans cannot perceive the land that lies beneath the void we are unable to pass between them. Since Vizonia has expanded so much, the Order has been unable to avoid some run-ins with the Torak, but they try to take them alive because they make for fearsome warriors,’ Tadruk explained.

‘I’ve no doubt,’ I replied, gulping in anxiety. Maybe Regeda was right and it wasn’t a very good idea to make an enemy of the Vizonian Order.

‘Are they sentient?’ Alum asked.

‘We don’t really know,’ Tadruk replied. ‘They can be trained more easily even than dogs, but in the wild their only interactions with other Torak are violent, and they don’t seem to eat or sleep.’

‘We have to do something about them,’ I said. ‘We can’t let them build an army of these monsters.’

‘We don’t have a choice. I doubt we could kill one of those things, let alone the whole pen. Besides, we’d be spotted, and we have the mission to think about.’ Timoth said.

‘You told me there wouldn’t be any fighting,’ Regeda added, and I nodded in agreement with both of them.

‘We’ll have to think of some way of fighting them when we get back,’ I said, though it would be difficult without bringing one back with us.

We tried to ignore the terrifying beasts as we strode into the village proper, past an adjacent second pen containing mere horses and donkeys. At this point it became a bustling metropolis, perhaps not quite as active as Trackford or Haelling Cove pre-raid, but not far from it either. The buildings were all constructed solely of wood with strangely flat untiled roofs, presumably on account of the rainless environment. All the people I heard spoke in Hollowhold accents, and most of them were monks or similarly embedded in the monastic hierarchy. There were a few commoners around too, all of whom moved with purpose. I wondered if they lived permanently in Vizonia.

‘Where are the slaves?’ I asked Tadruk.

‘At the mines, like I told you.’

‘How far are we from the archives?’ Timoth asked.

‘Not far now,’ Tadruk replied. We’d been walking a few hours and my legs were sweaty and sore. ‘What’s going on here?’

The latter question was directed at a formation of soldiers dressed in black tunics emblazed with the Vizonian icon. They bore spears and shields and ornate metal helmets which covered their entire faces. There were at least fifty of them being drilled up and down the street by some sort of officer.

‘Tadruk… it is most unnerving when the guide is surprised,’ I murmured. ‘You said nothing of a Vizonian army.’

‘I have not been to Vizonia in some months, but for so rapid a change… They must have been training some of the immigrants from Trent and the Borderlands. I wonder how many groups like this there are…’

It was a worrying thought. In a single stroll we’d seen enough men to take any of the Reach’s outlying towns and enough monsters to challenge for its fortresses, though it was difficult to guess at their capabilities without seeing them in action. If there were other troops of soldiers, let alone other pens of Toraks, then Vizonia would have a force to challenge any Duchy in Halivaara. Perhaps even the Kingdom itself.

‘They’re preparing for a battle,’ Timoth advised. ‘These aren’t peacetime parade formations. Besides, why maintain a standing army for a realm with no borders? These men are being readied to fight.’

I didn’t know what he was seeing in their movements to make such a prediction but I trusted it nonetheless, especially when Alum nodded his assent.

‘Do you know anything about where they might be deployed?’ I asked Tadruk, but he shook his head.

‘It could be anywhere. So far, Ioran has preferred to fund dissenting Halivaaran elements rather than fight directly, but that may be about to change.’

It was a grim thought, interrupted by one of the commoners approaching us with a friendly greeting which I returned as casually as possible. He was a young man, no older than I, with thick brown hair and a keen face.

‘I don’t recognise you,’ he said. ‘Can you show me your necklace?’

‘My necklace?’ I asked him in my best Hollowhold accent. I noticed Timoth’s hand straying beneath his robes, closer to his weapon. I tried to shake my head mildly enough to avoid detection by the Vizonian.

‘Your Vizonian necklace. I’m supposed to ask everyone for one.’

‘Since when?’ Tadruk asked. ‘There was no such protocol when last I was here.’

‘Since Milos became King in Halivaara,’ the boy replied. ‘I’m sorry to tell you, but if you don’t all have one you’ll have to leave immediately.’

I looked around, considering our options. We were in the middle of a street, though in Vizonia these were unpaved grass. No buildings were close enough for us to back into without being seen. We had no choice but to talk our way out of this.

‘We’ve walked a long way from the edge of the town to get here, if we go back we’ll have to do it all again. Don’t you think you could give us a pass this time?’ I attempted.

‘I’m sorry, but the rule comes from Highfather Ioran himself.’

Things were getting desperate. I had to try a new tactic.

Swallowing my pride, I approached the boy and put my hand on his shoulder as an excuse to bend forward, revealing my cleavage through the top of my dropping robes. My hair fell over my shoulder as I looked him in the eye.

‘I’m so… sweaty, and hot. Don’t you think you could cut me a break? I just want to relax for a bit, you know?’

I dared not look at my companions. This was embarrassing enough without seeing their expressions, but we’d all known it might come to this.

‘We can make it worth your while,’ a new voice said. Regeda’s. Her clothes were much more revealing and form-fitting than mine, and even if she lacked my natural beauty, her hazel eyes had a certain homely charm a boy might find appealing.

The boy’s eyes widened in shock. And then in outrage. A pit formed in my stomach: we’d tried the wrong tactic for this place.

‘By Cha! Harlots!’ he cried, staggering away from us. Eyes turned in our direction. Soldiers’ eyes. ‘Harlots! Whores! They don’t have necklaces!’

‘Oh Cha,’ I breathed.

The game was up.