Dayan arrived on a cold morning, heavy white clouds steaming out from the mouth of his lion’s helm. Uhtric was frightened at the sight of him, despite himself; the Chanat were graceful riders, disconcertingly fast, and often had damned good swinging arms.

But he recognized Dayan readily enough and the fear in him eased as Dayan slowed his horse, though he was still dealing with a bout of anxiety from the past month's events.

A letter from a Count, a sunken ship, and a hundred angry fishers and farmers. Uhtric of Titemore was not the man to be dealing with such issues, but life, in all its mystery, brought with it oddities around every corner.

Dayan was one such oddity. Wearing scaled armor made from the hide of some monster or another, Dayan was an imposing figure to begin with and had only become more so after the business with the flesheater. The man had grown stronger in a way that was instantly obvious, as if power itself emanated from his body like heat from a fire.

“Welcome, Dayan,” Uhtric called once the riders were close enough.

“Greetings, Uhtric. I bring good news, and bad.”

“The beast is dead,” Uhtric said.

Dayan lifted the lion’s helm from his head. “How?–”

“Milord Alden told us,” Uhtric said simply.

“I understand. Where is milord, if I may ask? We are in need of carriages. The beast is large. We will need ten, I think. Any less will take several trips.”

“Should be at the manor. Come.”

“Is that the manor?” Dayan asked, pointing high up on the hill overlooking the village. There was the largest building around, a house of dark wood three stories tall.

Uhtric nodded.

“It is. They’ve added another floor at the top, and milord Alden is studyin’ how to move the earth itself with his magic. He’s making a basement, he says.”

“Basement?”

It took Uhtric a second to understand Dayan’s confusion, until he remembered the Chanat had no buildings of their own. “They dig up the earth and build another room down there.”

“Ah,” Dayan said. “I would much like to see this ‘basement’ when it is complete.”

“And I’d like to see this monster you killed. What kind was it?”

Dayan fingered his horse’s mane. “An odd one,” he said.

“Odder than a flesheater?”

Dayan shrugged, turned away. “Yes and no. A flesheater of that size was unheard of when I was a child, but this other creature was new to us. It was not of Tejin’s lands.”

“Migrated, then?”

“I believe so.”

In the distance, on the far side of the village, the church’s bell began to toll, its great iron bell swinging back and forth. The sound made Uhtric flinch.

“Still with this bell of yours,” Dayan complained. “Such a noisy thing. I cannot believe you Imperials listen to this every day.”

Uhtric laughed without mirth, surprising himself. He’d intended at least some. “It’s usually not this often. But when the Emperor dies, we ring the bell every day in his honor.” And every night in my dreams. The sound of bells had never left him since that day, and even now they made him tense.

“Who, or what, is this Emperor of yours?” Dayan asked.

Uhtric grimaced, and now it was his turn to finger his horse’s mane. “It’s…complicated,” he said after a pause. “The Emperor–name was Leobold, s’far as I remember– he’s our ruler. Was, I guess. But it ain’t like with Milord Alden. Ain’t never seen the Emperor, and ain’t ever met no one who has. Emperor weren’t one to give out orders, neither.”

“An odd way of things,” Dayan said.

“Suppose you're right on that. But it’s how things were. Just not anymore. Emperor’s dead, and I don’t think anyone really knows what that means, at the moment.”

“Was he a worthy ruler?”

A tough question, and one Uhtric didn’t care to answer. “I’m just a simple man. My place is to serve, and that’s what I did. What I’ll continue to do.”

“Ha! An interesting answer, friend Uhtric. I have many more questions about this Emperor of yours, but they will have to wait. Friend Gosfrid is waiting for us, it seems.”

Gosfrid was leant against the manor, chewing something fierce. When he saw them he turned to the side and spit, the liquid loose and brown.

“The chew again?” Uhtric asked. Gosfrid spat again, unbothered.

“Chanat know some things we don’t,” he replied. “Chew’s one of’em.”

Uhtric shook his head. “Is milord in?”

Gosfrid shrugged. “If he is he ain’t responding.” With a fist, he pounded on the door several times, to no avail.

“Milord Alden?” Uhtric called out. “Dayan’s returned.”

Again, nothing.

“See?” Gosfrid said. He spit.

Uhtirc rapped against the door this time, hard enough to hurt his hand. “Milord!” he yelled. From within the manor he heard nothing.

“Too busy fuckin’ Dame Amice, I’m bettin’.”

“Gosfrid!” Uhtric snapped.

“It’s the truth, and you know it. Two can’t keep their hands off of each other of late.”

He scowled at the archer, but in the back of his mind he thought it might be true. The two had always been friendly, but ever since settling in Lyonpool the two had an energy about them one couldn’t mistake for anything else.

Still, the way Gosfrid said it verged on disrespect, and Uhtric wouldn’t settle for it.

“He isn’t in,” Dayan said before Uhtric could say anything.

“How ya know?” Uhtric asked.

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“I can hear things better now, since Lord Alden’s magic affected me. They aren’t here, or if they are they aren’t moving. Lord Alden is not one to ignore others like this.”

Uhtric scratched his head. “Where the fuck they gone to, then?”

Gosfrid shrugged, spat. This one was particularly loose and brown. “I don’t know. Been gone since last night, at least. Don’t much matter at the moment. Look.” He pointed down the hill along the dirt road which, as it happened, led directly to the lake below. There, at the bottom where water and land met, a number of docks of varying sizes rested along the shore. All but the longest dock were occupied by boats; the few Drygallins who cared to live in Lyonpool were fishermen, and the easy access to the lake that Lyonpool granted them was all they cared for.

But out on the lake Uhtric could just make out a speck of brown that drifted towards them. A speck that, as it grew closer, Uhtric found to be a ship. A ship larger than any owned by Baron Alden. A ship perhaps, Uhtric thought, too big for even their largest dock.

By the time he reached the docks his legs ached, he was gasping for breath, and he was sweating despite the cool not-yet-spring air. The boat, as he feared, was too big for the dock, and half the fishermen were scrambling about to help anchor it to the land. Uhtric would have been scrambling, too, if he’d known what to do in all the commotion. And if his lungs didn’t still burn with the need for more air.

Eventually his lungs settled, just in time for Thunor to pull him along and hand him a rope. “Wrap it around this, quick,” Thunor said, and Uhtric obeyed. In matters of boating Thunor might as well have been a baron himself, and so Uhtric wrapped the rope for all his life was worth.

After scrambling about like madmen for near twenty minutes, all the while listening to the men aboard the boat bark commands at them from above, the boat was finally secured and the first bridge descended. The first ones off the boat were not sailors, as far as Uhtric could tell, but men-at-arms if full kit; wearing shiny mail and thick padding, a group of twenty or so men descended upon them faster than they could react.

“Hold,” one of the men-at-arms shouted, his brow furrowed so deeply Uhtric wondered if the man had ever been anything but mad. The fishermen held, but Uhtric could not. He was assistant to a baron after all; sitting idly by while his people were accosted put a sour taste in his mouth.

“What’s this about?” he questioned the angry man who seemed to be in charge.

“I said, ‘hold’.”

Uhtric curled his fingers into a fist, ready to brawl, until he looked back up at the boat and saw a woman in the finest dress he’d ever seen.

“Stand down, Egbin,” the woman said. The angry man nodded and took a step back, though his anger did not subside. No doubt he was eager to fight as Uhtric was.

“I take it by your attire you are a lady?” Uhtric asked the woman. The angry man glared at him.

“That I am. I am the lady Aelfwynn, Count Stowgardyn’s eldest daughter, here to treat with Baron Lyonpool. May I have your name?”

“Uhtric, milady.” He bowed.

Lady Aelfwynn smiled. She was a pretty thing, Uhtric thought. He’d have been smitten, had he been ten or twenty years younger.

“It is a pleasure, Uhtric. May I ask you to take me to Lord Alden?”

Uhtric licked his lips, searching for words. He could feel Gosfrid’s stare at the back of his head, and even Dayan shifted uncomfortably beside him. Seems they’re leavin’ the dirty work to me. He expected as much from Gosfrid; skilled as he was, Gosfrid had no patience for the daily affairs of dealing with a barony.

It’s all on me, then. “That’s an, uh, difficult thing, milady,” Uhtric said. “Milord’s preoccupied at the moment. Seein’ how, uh… unexpected… your visit is, milord must’ve thought he’d have more time. But I’ll tell him you’re here, milady, no worries on that.”

“See that there are no worries,” Egbin groweld.

“Enough of that, now,” lady Aelfwynn said. “Uhtric has the right of it. No letter was sent. My presence could not have been expected.”

“Of course, my lady,” Egbin said, none too pleased.

“But,” Aelfwynn said, letting the word hang a moment. “I would very much like you to take me to him, regardless. Time is short, at the moment, and the sooner I am able to see him the better.”

“Of course, milady,” Uhtric said, bowing. “But, uh, it’ll be a bit before he can see you. Only a short wait, I promise.”

Egbin stepped up to him and put a hand on his shoulder. Up close, Uhtric could see that his eyes were black with flecks of red, like smoldering coal. “Lady Aelfwynn has asked that you take us to Lord Alden. Do not make her ask again.”

“I can’t,” he said.

“Why?” Egbin asked, inching closer.

With barely an inch between their faces, Uhtric wanted to clobber him. Doubly so for being a pain in his ass the short while he’d known the man. Instead he then turned to Aeflwyyn.

“If you’d follow me, milady, I can take ya to the church where ya can rest and pray. Manor’s not quite fit for visitors yet, sad to say.”

Aelfwynn smiled, and Uhtric thought she glowed. “I am amenable to that arrangement.”

When Aelfwynn and her entourage were safely secured in the church, an affair that took what felt like half the morning, Uhtric took Gosfrid and Dayan each by a shoulder and dragged them a short distance from the church.

“Where the hell is he?” Uhtric asked.

Gosfrid shrugged. “Who knows.”

“Busy, perhaps,” Dayan offered.

“Busy fuckin’ Amice, most like,” Gosfrid added. Uhtric scowled.

“Fuck me,” Uhtric said. “Why me, of all people?” He was the wrong choice. Too old and too inept to do anything right. That he was a serf no more was only due to pure luck; had he not met Alden he would have still been serving in the Death Guard, moving the dead and finishing off the injured after every battle.

Thankful as he was to the man, his troubles now were all his fault. Or, at least, that was the only way Uhtric could see it.

“Somethin’s got to be done,” he said.

Gosfrid shrugged again, then spat. “Keep her busy. ‘Bout all we can do.”

“Busy for how long? An hour? Two? Could be days before milord’s back, for all we know.”

“I do not see what choice we have,” Dayan said. Pulling away from Uhtric, Dayan leaned against the church’s wall, producing a dagger from the sheath on his hip. He inspected the blade, its fine steel surface glimmering. He sheathed it once more. “We cannot fight them, I take it? I would very much like to fight the one with the angry eyes.”

Uhtric waved dismissively. “No, we can’t damn well fight them.”

Gosfrid stepped in close from behind, the movement silent, given away only by the rancid smell of his chew. Damned hunter, Uhtric thought. Heart’ll give out one of these days if he keeps this up.

“We don’t have much time,” Gosfrid said. “Either one of us keeps her busy long enough to find Lord Alden, or we tell her the truth. Way I see it, the truth won’t work. We can’t trust she’ll stay pleasant, and I’m not ready to be dealing with some spoiled daughter of a Count. ”

Uhtric sighed. The truth, ya say. This Aelfwynn seemed pleasant enough, he agreed, but Gosfrid had the right of it. Uhtric, like any serf, heard stories. Stories used to scare kids into behavin’, but stories nonetheless. And nobles never tended to be good folk in those stories.

“Funny thing, the truth. My grandda died of honesty, ya know,” Uhtric said.

“And we’re like to join him if we don’t figure out a way to stall her,” Gosfrid said.

“Maybe. But I was raised to be an honest man, like my Grandda. And Grandda was the most honest man in the world, or so grandma said. ‘Cept he told the truth when tellin’ the truth was the wrong thing to do. An’ he died for it. That always stuck with me.”

“So don’t tell the truth,” Gosfrid said.

Uhtric sighed again, remembering his grandmother. A simple, hardy woman, as quick to smile at him as she was to smack him on the hand with her wooden spoon. He rubbed his hand at the memory, as if he could still feel the sting.

Grandda died for the truth, she’d said when he was a boy. And he wouldn’t have lived a proper day without the truth, either.

“We ain’t going to die,” Uhtric said. “Might get a chewing out later. A disappointed look. I can take that from a baron, even milord. What I can’t take is knowin’ the shame it’d bring me grandda and grandma in heaven. So unless you care to waltz on in there an’ give Lady Aelfwynn an earful until milord gets back, I’m gonna go an’ tell her the truth.”

Gosfrid grinned, a look that irritated Uhtric, though he didn’t know why. That was until he entered the church and the doors closed behind him, and Lady Aelfwynn and her angry man-at-arms turned to look at him.

Bastard’s offered me up as dinner. He could just see it. Gosfrid’s back disappearing into the woods as he turned tail and ran.

Uhtric walked down the church aisle, his steps echoing. A bead of sweat trickled down his back, and his tongue dried up.

“Will Lord Alden be joining us soon?” Aelfwynn asked, her deep green eyes staring up at him with expectation. What had her so interested in Alden, Uhtric wondered, that she’d come all this way. He didn’t have the courage to ask.

“There’s… bad news on that, milady. Ya see, milord’s a bit… well, milord’s an, um… a free spirit, as it were. He does as he wants an’ leaves me an’ the rest to pick up the pieces. An’ to put it short, milord’s gone off somewhere and didn’t bother to tell us.”

Deep in her green eyes Uhtric saw something. A spark of emotion, there and gone again faster than he could blink an eye. He thought it might have been anger.

“You mean to say, you don’t know where Lord Alden is, at current?”

Uhtric nodded. “Yes, milady. That’s the case.”

The anger was there now, clear as day and no longer spark. An anger that put her man-at-arm’s to shame, and so intense that it made Uhtric take an instinctive step back.

“That is…unfortunate,” she said.