"Is everything alright, Swordmaster?" the messenger asks as both of us ride side by side down the main drag of Deshawn City. After I had packed my gear, I managed to secure a horse on loan from the stables with some difficulty, no thanks to Ramon taking his time to return my actual assigned horse.

"Of course everything is alright?" I reply with a strained smile, "Why wouldn't it not be?"

"Your mount is, uh, drifting to the side?" the messenger explains, giving me the side eye. The smile on my face becomes even more unpleasant as my steed, a powerful chestnut destrier, neighs in an almost self satisfied way.

The House of Robeur maintained a large stable, with horses regularly being brought in to serve the needs of the knights. The best horses would naturally be reserved for the most important members of the House, so my heart sunk when the Loaner was presented to me. The Loaner's a large, powerful warhorse. The kind that you would use to charge straight into a horde of monsters while chopping away at them from the saddle.

Horses are surprisingly intelligent animals. For instance, they know that charging headfirst into a pack of gnashing monstrosities out for blood is a distinctly bad idea. Even after being broken and drilled, horses are loathe to engage in direct combat with monsters. There's a good reason why swordmasters usually dismount before we fight. Better the ground be solidly beneath your feet than being thrown off your noble steed in the middle of a battle. War horses that are willing to dive straight into battle against monsters are rare and greatly prized. No magic knight would give up the chance to have such an able creature serving him.

And yet not a single knight wanted to be permanently assigned to the Loaner. And for a war horse to be abandoned like that meant one thing.

"He's a strange one." I comment, kicking the Loaner's sides, forcing the animal to straighten out its path. Its going to be a long journey alright.

I had originally feared that the Loaner was bad tempered and rebellious, but thankfully, that wasn't the case. The animal had been part of the stable for so long that any rebelliousness had long been beaten out of it. But horses are smart, and the Loaner had devised a new way of showing its displeasure at any would be master.

To put it in simple terms, the Loaner had turned being a passive aggressive asshole into a fine art.

When I first set off with Mills's messenger, the Loaner had originally obediently followed my orders diligently enough. Than I realized that the horse was steadily dropping its speed, causing me to fall behind. Urging the horse to keep pace would work for a few minutes, but then the process would start again. The Loaner would begin slacking off once more and the messenger would pull ahead. I suspected if I let the horse have its way, it would eventually stop right in the middle of the road, traffic be damned.

Now the Loaner has revealed a new tactic in its repertoire. Drifting away from the road. And I have a good idea why.

Further ahead of the messenger and I is a man standing by the side of the road, waving his arms about with frantic energy. Dressed in the stained, piss yellow robes of the defunct clergy, this former priest regards the crowd gathering around him with a wild look in his eyes while cradling a chicken in his arms.

"Traitors! Traitors!" the priest yells to the jeers of the crowd, "You've all abandoned the gods!"

"The gods are gone." the messenger dismisses, "They abandoned us, not the other way round."

"Right you are." I grunt, while struggling to keep my horse trotting in a straight line. The Loaner seems to have decided cantering right into the nutcase priest is something it really needs to do. If I didn't keep kicking the bloody animal, the Loaner would have made a beeline straight through the crowd.

"The gods are not gone!" the priest rants, "They still hear us!"

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

The Loaner snorts through its nose at this declaration, almost as if its deriding the priest as well. I also notice that the animal has begun to pick up its pace noticeably.

"I'll prove it!" the priest roars defiantly at the hecklers around him.

And in an abrupt motion, the priest bites the head of the chicken off, sending blood spraying out of its neck.

"Shit!" the messenger shouts in alarm as the priest squeezes the carcass of the chicken, literally bathing his face in its blood.

"Shit." I curse, but over something else entirely. The Loaner had expertly angled itself to face the priest head on and from the tension in the beast's muscles, I could sense that the Loaner was preparing to break into a gallop.

"Gods! Fill me with your blessing!" the priest shrieks as he guzzles down the chicken blood, making a further mess of his clothes, "Possess me with the divine spirit!"

Loaner huffs and I can almost hear it snicker. Can horses snicker in the first place? But that's all secondary to the long deep breath Loaner takes, confirming my fears.

"You want to play games?" I bend over and whisper to the horse. Loaner gives an submissive neigh, but there's a palpable undercurrent of sarcasm buried just under the surface.

Grasping the reins, I yank back. Hard.

Loaner gasps as its head is pulled back painfully. I keep the pressure on, not letting up as the horse struggles against my magically enhanced strength. Loaner begins to rear up in an attempt to throw me off its back, but my legs tighten across its body like a vice. I could pulp the horse's organs in an instant if I wanted, damage to House property be damned.

And Loaner knows it.

"There you go." I laugh as Loaner settles down, making angry noises as it does so. I have no illusions about Loaner trying something in the future. If it had been so easy to discipline, Loaner would not have been left abandoned in the stables in the first place. But for now, the horse should be obedient enough to take me where I need to be.

The messenger thankfully has his attention fixed on the priest as the crazy man begins stuffing the dead chicken into his mouth, to the laughter of the crowd. I wouldn't be surprised if our holy man suffers from worms or something equally disgusting.

"Hey, show's over." I tap the messenger on the shoulder and the man gives a distracted nod in return. With no way to appeal to faith, I suppose what's left of the priesthood have to get people's attention through other ways. Other, far less dignified, ways.

"First time I ever saw that." the messenger comments as both of us pass through the gates of Deshawn City and follow the railway track heading into the Beyond.

"Trying to summon the gods?" I respond, "Most of the time its just pointless sermons, true. That show was far more exciting than the usual."

"No. Biting a chicken's head off." the messenger elaborates, "First time for everything I suppose."

.....

The sound of gunfire echoes over the horizon of the Beyond before we even reach the dig site. Mills in his message wasn't joking about the attack being imminent. The messenger and I pick up the pace, racing toward the dig site as fast as we can. Loaner also senses the urgency of the situation and stops acting up, both eyes fixed on the cloud of musket smoke rising in the distance.

The walls of the dig site thankfully still stand and as the messenger and I approach, there's a cry from whomever is keeping watch, loud enough to carry over the staccato beats of muskets firing. The gate to the camp is hastily opened and we gallop into the dig site which has become a whirlwind of activity. Most of the workers gathered around the paling at the opposite end of the dig site, blasting away with their muskets through firing loops cut into the fortifications. Powder and shot is piled up in a separate corner of the camp, where a few people toil away to prepare paper cartridges for the guns.

The tents have now been reinforced with wooden slats covered with spent arrows in a bizarre imitation of hedgehogs. In return for this protection, several buildings originally used to house the gear needed to maintain the extraction equipment had been dismantled, cannibalized for their wood. The messenger and I dismount and tie our horses to a post, thankfully sheltered under the shadow of the towering extractors that have fallen silent.

"Incoming!" someone shouts, "Take cover!"

The messenger pulls me into Mills's tent, now completely shielded by layers of wooden slats built around it. The sound of gunfire slackens and I hear arrows impacting all over the slats placed outside. There's a brief pause before the muskets begin firing away again.

"Took your time." Mills remarks as he twiddles his thumbs nervously at his desk, "Things aren't looking very good out there."

"That's why I'm here." I say to the client as Mills wipes his face with a handkerchief. The messenger bows quickly and leaves, no doubt eager to get some rest, if that's even possible in this warzone.

"The goblins are back, Mac." Mills mutters breathlessly.

The client swallows hard as his eyes dart nervously to a spot behind me. I quickly spin about, alert to any threat, but there's nothing. Mills rambles on after downing a glass of water to wet his throat.

"And they mean business."