The road was too dark to see more than a couple feet in front of him but Henry could tell that the path was empty now as he passed the area that he first encountered the bandits. Henry made extra sure that his horse wasn’t in the area and pressed on. He figured they would take him; he was a fine horse that served Henry well since he was given to him after a job protecting a noble family from an assassination attempt with his old company, too deep in memories of better times Henry almost missed the fork in the road he fixed himself in his saddle and spurred the nag breaking into a weak gallop.

After a couple of minutes of riding, Henry came upon a large keep, just like Tom said. It was definitely in need of repair, and pieces of the castle had fallen apart. There might be a crack around the base of the keep that I could slip through, Henry thought he dismounted his horse and led her into the brush not too deep as to attract any unwanted attention but far away enough that she wouldn’t be seen or heard by any passing bandits.

After tying the reins to a small tree, he crept up to the keep, staying low and out of sight. Henry slid around the base of the castle hoping to find some sort of crack or crevice in the building it had been decades since it had been taken care of surely there were some breaches in the thing's structure and sure enough, he found a slight crack that was just big enough for Henry to slip through he grinned and shimmied through the gap in the castle and found himself in a corridor that the bandits didn’t seem to be using for the time being.

Henry could hear cheering coming from further down the corridor and he wanted to check out the cause of the commotion for himself, as he walked down the corridor he noted the absolute lack of anything there were no paintings or tapestries on the walls and no candlesticks along the walls which gave the room a very drab feel to it, the bandits must have taken everything that they could carry but still Henry pressed on until the sounds of the men partying became so loud that Henry couldn’t hear himself think. He crept the door open and peeked through the gap and started counting, hoping he could get an accurate count.

1....5….10….16 damn that’s too many for me to take on directly, not even counting the ones who may be sleeping or-

“What the hell do you think you're doing here?”

Henry spun around and saw a scrawny redheaded boy gawking at him, dagger in hand, and recognized him as one of the bandits who had ambushed him, setting this whole job in motion.

He put one hand to his mouth gesturing for him to be quiet and the other behind his back where he kept the double-sided dagger of the Silent Sisters he got from one of his old paramours, the boys eyes widened surely realizing that the man before him was the same as before who had come after him to exact his vengeance and called out for his companions,, it was too late and Henry was already on him before he could let out more than a half yelp his dagger plunged in the boy’s throat and his hand covering his mouth.

Henry let him fall and wiped off the blood on the boy's shirt returning to the door to make sure that no one suspected anything was amiss, the room was still full of life thankfully and no one seemed to have noticed that one of their friends was dead although he thought it didn’t matter because with a little luck, they’d all follow or at least enough for him to get Tess out of the keep. He stayed by the door looking for his quarry, you’d think one girl out of a gang of brigands would stand out Henry thought to himself but as he went over the room for a fourth time, he realized she wasn’t with the main host of bandits as he had hoped. The thought of where she would be and what they might have been doing to her sent a slight shiver down the mercenary's spine as he spun around to race back down the hall, at the end of the hall there was a partially collapsed staircase he rushed up them gripping the hilt of his sword so tightly his knuckles went white.

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Somewhere near the top of the staircase, there were two members of the gang talking amongst themselves, but Henry couldn’t hear what they were saying and didn’t particularly care. He raced up the last couple of steps and flung his sword up and through the first man’s leg and torso while keeping pace until he met the second man on the same step and brought his sword down on him stopping just before making contact letting his friend's lifeless body roll down the stairs.

“Alright, I’m going to ask you a couple questions and you’re going to answer them as truthfully as possible, and if you don't, you'll end up like your friend down there.” He nodded to the dead man’s body, which was bent and contorted halfway down the stairs.

The man’s face went white with terror at the scene he just saw. It was becoming clearer and clearer that these “bandits” were only farmhands and poor beggars with the confidence that came with having lots of friends backing them.

“How many of you are there in the keep at night, where's the innkeeper's girl, and who’s leading this sorry excuse of bandits?” Henry rattled off the questions, keeping his sword edge against the man’s neck.

“T-t-there's usually around six of us who patrol the insides of the keep while the boss Roland and his favorites party in the main hall.”

“And where’s the girl? Tell me quickly man, before I cut you down!” Henry could feel the anger and impatience rising within him and almost took a stab at his arm just to hasten the interrogation process.

“I-I don’t know I swear it! There aren’t any women allowed in the keep Roland's own rules. He says women would only cause us more trouble, we protested but wouldn’t hear any of it honest.”

Damn it! He seems to be telling the truth. Maybe they took Tess away to some other location or did they kill her already? Why even take her just to kill her after a couple hours no, she must still be somewhere in the keep maybe under some sort of disguise.

“Alright, I believe you, but answer this one last question and I’ll let you go, okay?”

“Only one more question, honest?” The bandit asked, seeming less tense now that Henry offered him his safety.

“Of course, on my honor, I’ll let you run free as long as you answer my question. Have you had any new recruits recently?”

The man thought about his question for what felt like an eternity on those stairs and for a few moments Henry was losing hope, but when his face lit up, he mustered it back up again.

“Oh, yes yes! There was this one recruit, mysterious lad he covered his face and barely spoke a word. I answered you completely honest on my mother’s grave I did.”

“Yes, I’ll let you go in a moment, but first tell me where this recruit is now?” Henry was getting a better feeling now that he knew Tesslyn was here and not rotting away in some dungeon.

“He should be with Roland for tonight all the new recruits get a joining feast to welcome them into the crew.”

“Thank you, friend, you've been a big help to me.” Henry flashed that sly smile of his, lowered his sword and took a step away from the man, allowing him to retreat.

The man seemed hesitant to walk away, still shaken up by the death of his friend, but after he took a couple steps; he was bounding down the stairs two at a time sure of his freedom, however Henry knew he couldn’t risk him alerting the others and once more went for his dagger and flung it into the fleeing man’s back with great precision, his body went tumbling down farther than his friends had.