He had told them what they needed about thirty minutes ago, the questioner had spent that time verifying his story and confirming things. “They were to meet in Kyne.” He explained. “The person he’s meeting will approach with a passphrase.” He continued, outlining things like the date, time, and the proper identifiers. “How will you play this?” The questioner asked, intrigued.

“We’ll go there, pose as the man and pass along the message.” I said. “Then we’ll probably split up.” I mused. “One of us could trail that messenger back to the source, while the other clears out the bandits and waits for the ‘supplies’ he mentioned in the note. Either one will probably lead us to the source.” My eyes narrowed. “I wonder if they have spies that have told them of his capture.” I gestured towards the farmer. “We might have less time than we thought…”

“Who’s we?” The questioner asked. “Are you not the only person here?” I paused for a moment, I had meant Teal, but to explain that would have been to show my hand. I shook my head.

“I’ll pick up another irregular and get going as quickly as possible.” I lied, grimacing slightly. “Either way, time is of the essence. I’ll find a way to get to the bottom of this.” I continued. “It’s really getting on my nerves.” He nodded, and asked no more as I left the barracks. I went to draft a message for Frejr, telling them that Teal and I would be busy, and sending it towards Torven. After that I grabbed a week’s supplies. This is going to be uncomfortable… I thought, resigned.

“You heard the plan right?” I asked Teal as we got on the road. “I’ll be relying on you to go there and make the act convincing, you’ll make better time than I.” I rolled my shoulders. “I’ll be heading for where they set up camp. Just point me in the right direction.” I said, my voice soft and subdued. Teal nodded, looking around before pointing with a massive paw. It then bounded off.

I closed my eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath before starting my journey. Teal had likely pointed directly towards the encampment itself, so I just needed to keep myself orientated. It was dark when I arrived, the night cloudy, without even moonlight to illuminate my surroundings. I’d only managed my way thanks to Sense.

The encampment was bare, only a fraction of the preparations for their buildings complete. Orders were being barked, and a few people lay exhausted on the logs that formed benches around a fireplace. I settled in, I couldn’t jump in as it was, though the supplies would only come a while later, if they came to what was obviously a deserted camp they could hardly be expected to approach in the first place. Their current priority would probably be to put up the walls.

I watched them over the course of four days. Memorizing their patrol patterns and individual quirks. It was obvious how much they looked up to “Lanther”, his orders were followed with no grumbling, no dissent. They would argue with anyone except him. It was also increasingly clear that he was well organized, which was probably a contributing factor. The watch schedule, palisade design and the like had all been directed by him, and much as I didn’t like it I had to admit it was effective.

It was when the palisade had been put up that I approached, striding forwards towards the gate. The workers took their time noticing me, but when they did they cried out in surprise, hollering for Lanther. I had palmed the Aen, but they scrambled away from me as I approached, apparently they feared me, that was good. If you asked me why I hadn’t simply snuck in to kill them all I couldn’t tell you. Perhaps I was gripped by a sense of honour, perhaps I wanted to hear their reasons, hoping that somewhere within there would be some kind of mitigating factor, some proper excuse.

Either way, I stood at the gate, watching as Lanther sauntered up towards me. “What do you wish of us? Perchance you wish to speak with me… or issue some ‘warning’ from the esteemed constabulary?” No, he didn’t exactly use that word, but it was the closest analogue that didn’t sound like it was from an old western. He looked into my helm, a cocky grin on his face.

“Explain yourselves.” I said, my voice projecting across the camp. “None of those gnolls took up arms against you.” My helm turned to face the others, they held their weapons nervously. “They were innocents. Tell me why you did it.”

“Innocents you say?” ‘Lanther’ said, with a raised eyebrow. He turned to the others. “This gentleman would claim that the gnolls were innocents. Were they innocents when they razed our homes, or killed our compatriots?” A soft ‘no’ came from the camp. “And even if they didn’t fight against us, did they try to atone from their brethren?” ‘No.’ came the response, louder now. He cocked an eyebrow at me. “The people have spoken. We protected ourselves because they would not.”

“Do you all honestly believe the bullshit you’ve been fed?” I asked, anger slowly rising. “How could they possibly have helped you? Their able bodied and trained left to join the insurgents against their chief’s will, I don’t know if you noticed when you slaughtered them… No, I know you did, you took full advantage of it, didn’t you?” I snarled, staring at the farmers. “They were mostly women and children, the elderly, the weak. Yet you blame them for not raising a finger to help you?!”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Delving had proven a useful tool, and here it saved me once more, as ‘Lanther’ gather his magic and threw it towards me as a wreath of flames. I ducked into a roll, stepping forward to strike. A prickling wind brushes against me, and I throw myself aside as an explosive burst of wind rushes out of the gate. I trace the Aen. Gaven, I’m sorry, but this tool of war is going to be used for slaughter…

No one falls to nausea this time, owing to the restrictions that Gaven had put on it. Instead there was just a brilliant flash as the blade extended. ‘Lanther’ looked puzzled, but as I drew closer a look of horror crept onto his face. He spluttered, and threw a gout of flame at me. This time I waded through it, trusting my armour to take the heat. He darted backwards, using the wind to push himself faster and further away from me.

A few spearmen came up from behind me. I spun, passing my blade just below their spearheads. Nothing seemed to happen, and they started to grin, until I cracked my palm against them, sending the tips spinning. I lunged forward, sheathing the blade of light into the right one’s heart, before spinning to catch the second person’s spear haft with my left hand and sliding it between his ribs. His eyes widened as he gasped for breath that wouldn’t come, as I pulled the blade up to his head.

I turned back to ‘Lanther’, who had grabbed a waterskin, scattering the water ahead of him as he propelled them towards me. I unfurled my shield, catching the worst of the attack against it. I peeled a piece of the shield itself, throwing it at him. He noticed too late, and it bounced off his skull. He clutched at it in pain as I darted forward, disabling the Aen and breaking his nose with my fist. As he howled I mustered my strength and swung my elbow into his temple, rendering him insensate.

The rest of the farmers, not yet true bandits, did not last long. Some tried to gang up on me, before long realizing that when you can run a blade through anything with no resistance, it makes fighting several people far easier than before. A few tried to escape, and I placed myself between the gates, a bow from one of them to take out stragglers. A few people hid themselves, I Delved, seeking them out. I thrust into a tent, and a bloodcurdling scream escaped it. He blubbered, begging, screaming. I knelt, and ended his life. More ghosts to haunt me. I thought bitterly.

[You did what was necessary.] Page said in a low voice. That’s a small comfort. I retorted tiredly.

I dragged the unconscious ‘Lanther’ to a corner, tying him up. I drugged him with a few separate herbs I’d found in the forest. Ones Numen and Frejr had both pointed out, it broke the concentration of a mage, and disrupted their tie to magic. Thankfully it had a high threshold for toxicity, it’d just be inefficient, but you could hardly be accurate with herbs…

Once that was done I set to work on the gate, putting a ramshackle improvisation in place of the door. It would hold up to a careless look while I dealt with more pressing matters. Like the fact that there were almost twenty corpses on the ground. I sighed, ramming a shovel into the ground, thanking serendipity for the shovel that one of the farmers had thought to bring. The corpses had already attracted flies, I heaved corpses with maggots several hours old, my stomach threatening to turn if not for prior experience on the battlefield.

I kicked the last corpse into the pit, heaving a breath as I started pushing dirt into the hole. A chimaera’s roar came from the outside. It couldn’t have been Teal, it would have no need to use that form if it could simply shift into another that could enter. I’d left the corpses for too long. I cursed, drawing my sword as I pushed the gate open. The chimaera stared at me, growling. I settled into stance, I didn’t want to use the Aen here, not on it at least. I had plenty of steam to blow off.

It had run away soon enough, concluding that the potential meal wasn’t worth the hassle of fighting me. It bounded off, retreating back into the foliage. I wiped a grin off my face, I was definitely going to have a few bruises tomorrow, but that had been almost therapeutic. Turning into a real blood knight there. I chided myself.

I pushed myself onto my feet with a grimace, I needed to change how my armour looked, as it was distinctive of my person, even people that had never seen me knew how the armour looked. The good thing about having a distinguishing feature though, is that everybody will only remember that feature. I took apart my armour, remaking it to resemble the peasant wear that everyone had been wearing. It was no different in design from my normal clothing. If things went wrong though, I could count on this to take a blow or two.

I spent the next few days on an uberman sleep schedule, interspersing my day with frequent naps to stay alert more. Sure enough after a day or so a cart appeared, drawn by mule and led by a smart yet practically dressed man. The man stopped the cart ahead of the gate, and I pushed it open, letting my eyes dart left and right before settling on him. My hands rubbed on the spear I held, and I looked at him cautiously. “W-Who’re you?” I asked, licking my lips.

He stared at me for a moment. “It doesn’t matter to you, where is your leader?” He asked testily. “He should damn well know that I’m due to arrive around now, what’s he doing? Ambushing random people with pitchforks?” He shook his head. “Idiots.”

I nodded, ducking my head down to hide my face and keep up the act. “Would you like to come in first sir?” I asked. “We recently had to fight a chimaera…” My eyes gave the woods a wary glance, he nodded.

He gave a sigh. “Yeah, guess it wouldn’t hurt.”