I am not a small man. I don’t brag when I say this. I stand six and a half feet tall barefoot, and I’m two hundred and fifty pounds out of armor. I’ve been fighting my whole life, and that doesn’t make one soft.

You can imagine then, the strength in the arm holding me over the flame single-handed as though I weighed no more than a puppy.

I struggled against the grip, but the hand squeezed tighter and my vision began to blur. I tried to breathe, started to panic when I found I couldn’t. I punched at the arm attached to the vice around my neck, only to find it a solid mass of iron-hard muscle.

The grip tightened more. He’s going to break my neck, I realized.

“Alder Knight,” a voice like rumbling thunder growled, bathing me in carrion breath. “I should have guessed at Orson’s castle. You reeked of Blessed Gold, even then.”

Through my hazing vision, I caught a glimpse of the face beneath the cowl in the firelight. Pale red, like badland rock, with a cavernous mouth displaying two rows of jagged wolf’s teeth. Two short tusks emerged from either side of that maw, one of them partly broken and bearing signs of rot. A lion’s mane of something very like ivory-colored hair spilled down from the shadows of the cowl, stiff as needles. The flat nose and deeply sunken eyes gave the face a skull’s aspect.

Beneath me, the fire began to stretch curiously upward toward my dangling feet. I smelled burning leather, and in a sudden moment of pure, unabashed horror realized I would be held above the pit to burn like a roasting slab of meat rather than allowed the mercy of a broken neck.

Ogres, in all of their variety, are grievously deadly foes. I’d faced them before, and I had rarely been so hard pressed. Long-lived, though not immortal, the oldest of them can still remember ancient wars and their grudges do not gather rust. Strong as bears, fast as lions, and viciously cunning, they are not enemies to be trifled with lightly.

There is a very good reason alchemists in Urn were banned from creating sapient chimera.

“Hey! Shitbreath!” Catrin’s voice, I realized, oddly distant through my hazing senses. “Yeah, you, you brainless fuck! Put him down!”

I felt the ogre shift, turning toward the barmaid. He didn’t release his grip, keeping me near the flames. The creature in the fire snuffled at me, the sound reminiscent of crackling embers. An eager hound given an unexpected treat. Others throughout the inn were beginning to gather, I saw through my blurring vision. No one besides Cat tried to help me.

“I have not forgotten your treachery, malcathe.” Karog sounded almost bored, as though asking someone to wait their turn in a line. “You helped this man assassinate Orson Falconer. I will punish you for it in a moment.”

More precisely, a vampire hunter disguised as a healer had killed Orson Falconer, former baron of Caelfall. Somehow, I didn’t think correcting Karog on that would make him any less interested in eviscerating me.

He didn’t loosen his grip, but he had taken his attention off me, even briefly. A mistake. I might not be stronger than him, but that didn’t make me helpless.

And I don’t need to speak an Oath aloud — they are alloyed to my very soul.

I focused, touching on that core of power in me — what Karog had so poetically named Blessed Gold. Like a gilded flower it bloomed, filling me with strength. I didn’t have the concentration to shape Phantasm, or do anything too complex, but I’d always been much better at the more simple, straightforward magics.

What I did then could hardly be called Art. I burned my aura, my soul given form, and let it fill my bones, my muscles, my very flesh like sunlight on clean water. I made myself as strong and solid as steel. A dim amber glow filled the shadowed taproom. I heard several voices gasp.

I placed my hands on Karog’s arm — my fingers could barely enclosed his wrist — and squeezed. I felt flesh give, heard cartilage creak. The ogre’s grip loosened, and I lashed out with a boot, connecting with his shoulder.

He let go, and I nearly fell into the fire. I managed to avoid it, rolling, and came up on my feet. A bit singed, but alive. Karog stumbled back, momentarily off balance, splitting a heavy oaken table as he put his weight against it. His trembling right hand already swelled with bruising. I rubbed at my neck, feeling the shallow gashes where his claws had cut me. We’d both marked one another, then.

Karog’s yellow eyes narrowed beneath his frayed hood, and he lowered his head to me. “Ah. I had wondered if there was any strength left in you.”

I rolled my shoulders, craning my neck to one side to work out the stiffness from his grip. My skin had taken on a very faint golden tint, becoming shiny and reflective. “Enough,” I said. “Before we do this, though…” I fixed him with my eyes, shining bright as I burned my aura “I have a question.”

Karog paused, listening. An ill memory flashed behind my eyes, a church filled with blood and death, a village slaughtered for a madman’s crusade. I hadn’t been there when the deed had been done, didn’t know if the ogre in front of me — a mercenary, so far as I knew — had a share of the blood debt owed for that nightmare.

But he’d certainly been there, and hadn’t done a damn thing to stop it.

“Where are the others from Castle Cael?” I asked him, voice hard and echoing subtly with my magic. “Lillian, Issachar, the goblin, and those hooded twins… tell me where I can find them.”

Karog snorted. He stood from his half-crouch, towering to his full height of nine feet, a juggernaut of muscle and violence. The skulls lining his belt, only a few of which were human, clinked together with the motion. A haze of heat came out of his nostrils as he let out a long exhale.

Then, with deliberate slowness, he reached into the depths of his ragged cloak and pulled out two scarred, heavy blades. In his hands, they looked like short cleavers. In mine, they would have been cumbersome broadswords.

“Beyond your reach,” Karog growled.

“Al!”

I caught movement in the corner of my eye, and caught my axe as it spun through the air. I nodded my thanks to Cat. She’d taken its cover off, and the faerie alloy gleamed near bright as the smoldering flames in the pit.

“You will not be the first,” Karog said, beginning to pace a slow circle. I turned, matching the movement. “Not the first who’s sworn to your corpse tree I’ve slain. We shall see if you match their mien.”

“No.” Another voice cut through the tension like a well-honed knife. “We won’t.”

Heat flashed, and Karog and I both leapt back at once, an instant before a serpentine column of smoldering flame would have whipped the skin from our bones. I threw up a hand, cursing as scalding air battered at me. When my vision cleared again, a tall, stooped old vulture of a man in a stained apron strode onto the floor between me and the ogre.

The Keeper glowered first at Karog, then me with his corpse eye. He sneered at the table we’d broken in our short scuffle. “You will both pay for that,” he spat in his phlegmy voice.

From the firepit, two long tongues of nearly solid flame surged forth like huge serpents. They coiled around the Keeper, twisting and writhing, very much alive. They formed a barrier between me and the mercenary, a dutiful hound obeying its master.

The Keeper of the Backroad, whom that fiend fire served, pointed a finger at me. “I told you, Hewer, I didn’t want any trouble.” Then he turned on Karog. “And you… I know you’re from the continent, and things are different there, but my rule is very simple. No bloodshed in my inn. You want to kill each other, do it outside. Otherwise…”

The twin serpents of flame lashed hungrily, adding weight to the old bartender’s next words. “Your right to my protection will be revoked.”

Several dozen shadowy figures of myriad descriptions had gathered to watch the show. Travelers, merchants, beggars, knights in tarnished armor — none of them entirely normal, or without a hint of threat. I noted how hungry their eyes seemed, especially at that last statement. More than a few had visibly inhuman frames beneath their concealing garments, their bright eyes alighting on me with disconcerting eagerness.

One, a hooded urchin in a soiled cloak, chittered at me. I swear, there were mandibles under the hood.

Few of them looked at Karog. Figures. I turned my attention on the ogre and spoke aloud. “I’m willing to take this outside if you are.”

Karog glowered at the Keeper a moment longer, before his wolf’s eyes slid to me. He snorted, then sheathed his blades. “We will have our blood soon enough, Elf Friend. For now…”

He turned, his ragged cloak swirling dramatically. “I am here to relax.”

I glared at his back as he walked away, frustrated. I knew his game. I had ways of telling lies and compelling answers with my magic, and I’d given away that I wanted him to tell me where his allies were hiding.

The fiend fire retreated back into the pit, and the Keeper turned his malign gaze on me. I held up my off hand defensively, lowering the axe. “He attacked me first.”

The Keeper spat a foul curse, then stalked off toward his bar. Catrin appeared at my shoulder, sighing. “Oh, he’s angry.”

“Trouble, you think?” I asked.

Cat pursed her lips. “Not sure. He won’t forget this, though. He already doesn’t like you much.” She put a hand on my arm. “You’re injured.” She nodded to my neck. “Let’s get you to a room, and get those cuts taken care of.”

“I’m fine—” I began, but Cat cut me off.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“We don’t want anyone here seeing you bleed,” she said, her voice low and urgent.

Once again, I looked at the congregation of hungry eyes. Even the other serving girls, all pretty and dressed similar to Cat, watched me with predatory intensity. While many had returned to their tables and nooks after the show had ended, the less human still lingered.

I knew what most of them were. Changelings. The accursed. Rogue undead. Wicked faeries of Briar and Bane.

Enemies.

“They all know what you are,” Catrin said in a low voice only I could hear. “A lot of them still remember when the Table was their enemy. The Keeper’s rules protect you, but it’s best not to push your luck.”

Swallowing, I nodded. “Right then.”

***

“Oh, don’t be such a baby.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

Catrin pulled the alcohol-soaked cloth back from my neck and fixed me with a withering look. “You’re making a face.”

“It’s just…” I tilted my head away as she tried to pat me with the disinfectant again. “I don’t get infections easily, and these will heal within the day. There’s no point.”

“Resistant is not the same thing as being immune. Better to be safe.” I suppressed my wince as she dabbed at my open cuts.

We sat in one of the second level rooms, a comfortable, clean space as old and subtly off-putting as the rest of the Backroad, furnished with a bed, wardrobe, and desk, their wooden frames carved in abstract designs. Moonlight set the window’s near opaque glass aglow, mixing with the hearth Cat had lit to keep the winter chill at bay.

We sat side by side on the bed. My mind still swirled with the confrontation downstairs, and its implications. I ran a thumb along my ring in my usual thoughtful habit. Catrin noticed the motion of my hand. “What’s the story with that ring, anyway?” She asked. “It’s beautiful.”

I glanced down at the ivory band. Bone white and set with its eerie stone, beautiful isn’t quite the word I’d have used. “An ally made it for me,” I said. “The stone is fomorisite.” I hesitated, then on impulse added, “it eats bad dreams.”

Or it had, anyway. I hadn’t had another repeat of the incident at camp, but it still unsettled me. Neither could I ask Rysanthe about it, not until she visited the Fane again.

“…I see.” Cat’s eyes lifted to mine, and they were full of sympathy.

“What do you think Karog is doing here?” I asked aloud, breaking the uncomfortable emotion that welled in that silence. “Back in Caelfall, he and his allies vanished after they gave their pet demon a body.”

They gave Yith flesh with maggots and meat, a voice crooned in my mind. I shook the memory of that nightmare off.

Cat shook her head, blowing a stray lock of chestnut hair out of her face as she leaned back, her work at my injuries finished. “I’m sorry, Al. I’ve tried gathering rumors about them, but nothing’s come up. This is the first I’ve seen any of that group since then.”

After Caelfall, she’d promised to keep an ear to the ever-churning mill of rumors and whispered secrets which passed through the Backroad. In my infrequent visits over the past year, she hadn’t learned much. The shadowy allies of Orson Falconer, whatever greater faction they truly aligned with, had been a phantom.

That is, until Karog had made this surprise reappearance. Why now? What was he here for? And what did I do about it? I couldn’t just attack him, not with the Keeper’s protection in place.

“I doubt I’ll get anything out of Karog by force,” I sighed, rubbing at my aching eyes. “Anything more you can tell me about him?”

Cat pursed her lips, narrowing her eyes in thought. “He’s a mercenary. Of all the participants at Orson’s council, I got the most facts about him. From what I’ve learned, he’s a one-ogre army with a propensity for massacring castle garrisons and dismantling military encampments. He carved a bloody path across half of Edaea before coming here, shortly before that council last year. They say he’s even taken jobs for the Cambion. A nasty one, for certain.”

She bit at the nail of her left thumb, her eyes wandering. “I’d get more out of him, but no way he’s going to drop his guard around me now. I’d ask one of the other girls, but…” she shrugged and sighed. “I don’t want to test the Keeper’s protection, not with that monster, but I've got some favors owed to me around here. If he meets anyone, I’ll know."

I tried to move my thoughts away from exactly how the Backroad’s staff would collect those secrets. “Thank you,” I said quietly, my eyes on the fire. “I hope it won’t cause you any trouble, helping me down there. Or, you know… all the times I visit.”

I wasn't well liked by the sorts of people, and beings, who frequented the Backroad Inn. I'd considered how that might fall back on Cat, who'd invited me and who'd stuck up for me publicly on more than one occasion. I'd even considered it might put her in danger, and I did worry on her account.

Catrin shrugged and in a very casual way said, “they’ll just assume I’m fucking you. Nothing to worry over.”

When I started, she let out her easy laugh. “It’s what they expect, big man, don’t lose your head over it. Even if it did cause trouble…” Her demeanor turned serious, her eyes flashing with sudden anger. “I won’t forget what happened at Cael. I’ve got a fang sharpened over that, don’t you doubt.”

“We’ll find them,” I assured her. “They can’t hide forever.”

“I’m definitely not going to let their goons rip you to pieces where I work. It’s just unprofessional.” Cat shook her head mournfully.

I reached a hand up to inspect the cuts on my neck, then suddenly went stiff as a fist of pain seized my left shoulder. Cat’s eyes flickered to me, catching my discomfort even though I tried to hide it.

“You’re hurt,” she said, frowning. “Did Karog—”

“No.” I averted my gaze, embarrassed. “It’s another injury. It’s nothing.”

“Let me see.”

Her tone didn’t brook disagreement. I hesitated, but nodded when I saw the hard look in her eyes. She pulled the collar of my shirt away from my left shoulder, gasping at what she saw there.

Beginning just below the collar bone, stretching up over the shoulder’s curve, an ugly gray mark deformed my skin. Halfway between a bruise and a burn scar, it was shapeless and dark, with a deep gray color and a grainy texture.

“What is this!?” Cat asked, muted horror in her voice.

“An Orkaelin soldier stabbed me with Devil Iron last autumn,” I explained, as she ran her fingers over the scar. “Some of it broke off and fused to the bone. My own magic kept it from spreading, but it left me with this.”

“It’s hurting you.” She had genuine worry in her voice.

“Just a bit of pain,” I said, trying for bravado. “I’m used to it. I don’t remember making you my physiker, though.”

Cat snorted. “Who else is looking after you? I know you aren’t. Besides…”

Something about her demeanor changed subtly. Her eyes caught mine and she smiled shyly, hand still on my shoulder. “Maybe I’m just keeping you healthy so I can get another taste?”

I went very still. In the relative security of the private room I’d taken off my gear, so I wore only my trousers and woolen winter shirt. It felt strange, and cold, being outside the Fane without my armor on — no, it felt strange anywhere, and probably always would.

I felt very aware of how exposed I was as Cat’s hand glided down my left arm, her light fingers lingering on two prominent scars — ugly gashes, given to me by predatory chimera in the bowels of Orson Falconer’s keep. I could still remember Catrin’s lips there, feel that half unsettling, half exciting rush of letting her take from me.

And Cat was… Well, I won’t deny it. I found her appealing to look at, to talk to. I liked the ever-present wry amusement at the corners of her lips, the way her features shifted with every hidden thought and casual word.

It wasn’t just that I found her pretty. She had an energy in her, a life, a sense of confidence and purpose I struggled to find in myself.

I found myself caught in her eyes, warm brown and specked with red. They were full of hunger, those eyes, always there, always leaking out of her every furtive motion and energetic word like a nervous fit she was just on the verge of losing her grip on. It was that undercurrent which kept me on guard, always.

But it also drew me in, though I kept trying to deny it to myself.

I felt her exploring fingers drift back up to my injured neck, touching the drying blood there. I stiffened. She froze as well, going unnaturally still. For a long moment Cat didn’t even seem to breathe. Neither did she pull her hand away.

It had been a long time since I’d been touched. Wanted. I’d been with women on dark and cold nights on a few occasions over the past decade, when the loneliness had gotten to be too much to bear. It had never made me feel better, not for long. Only like I'd lost something I'd never be able to get back.

I didn’t want to tint Catrin with those feelings, complicate what we had. She was the only friend I had left who wasn’t connected to my old life or my current work. I valued that. I didn’t want to break it. So I turned my head away as she drew very close to me, her lips parting.

She didn’t react with hurt or anger. Instead, sighing she said, “who hurt you, Alken? Who broke your heart and made you afraid of this?” She reached out to adjust my hair, her hands brushing over the scars over my left eye. I caught her by the wrist, not ungently.

"I won't hurt you," she said after I'd let her go. "Not much, anyway. You know I'll have to be with someone tonight." She smiled a sad smile. "I wouldn't mind if it was you."

My throat felt very tight all the sudden. “I don’t want to use you like that. It’s not right, that the Keeper lets his guests…”

That wasn’t the whole truth, but it was a truth. A safer one.

“Use us…” Cat blinked, and then let out a snort of laughter. “Al… we’re using him. Him and everyone who walks through these doors. You think it’s a bad deal for us, this place?”

The mockery in her tone scalded me, and I felt some of the same irrational anger I’d thrown at Maxim and Emma billow out before I could stop it. “So you’re using me too, then, is that it?” I smiled bitterly. “You practically said so already. You just want another taste.”

Anger flashed in Cat’s eyes, now running with vermillion eddies. “Is that really all you think, after all this time? Is that why you keep looking at me like some sad hound locked outside a window, even though I’m right here?”

She slapped a palm down on the bed. When I only stared, not sure what to say, her voice nearly became a hiss. “Is it because I’m a bloodsucker or because I’m a whore? Which is more distasteful to you, Milord?”

I pulled more firmly away from her then. She glared at me defiantly. Her face had become very pale, its color bleeding away as she loosened her glamor.

I stood and walked toward the window, placing my back to her so she couldn’t see my expression. A moment passed before I managed to find my calm.

Part of the problem was that she’d hit the mark, on both counts. Catrin, and most of the other serving maids in the Backroad, were all hemophages of one sort or another. It was part of the Keeper’s business model — guests got a warm, or cold, body in their bed, and his employees got blood. So far as I understood, most of the patrons found as much pleasure in being fed upon as anything else.

The Backroad wasn’t just a traveler’s inn. It was also a brothel.

Both her nature as a dhampir and her profession made me uncomfortable. Many times I’d found myself pitying her, believing her to be trapped in some sort of hateful indenture, forced to sleep with the Keeper’s guests in order to keep the old vulture’s good will and get the blood she needed to appease her dark hunger.

Had I been looking down on her? Had I been seeing her through the tinted lense of the paladin I had once been?

“Alken, I…” Cat’s voice sounded meek all the sudden, full of regret. “I’m sorry, I don’t know where that came from. It’s the hunger, you know? I get frustrated easy.”

“It’s alright,” I said, more awkward than angry. I turned back. Cat still sat on the bed. She had changed dramatically, her glamour peeling away in expectation of release. Her skin had taken on a grayish pallor, the bleaching even taking the rich color in her eyes, fading them to a milky white near ghoulish as the Keeper’s one blind orb. Her hair had gone pale, her ears tapering to crooked points.

“I’m sorry,” I said, averting my eyes from the pale, fanged face looking at me from the bed. “I’m being an ass, I know, but I just…” I sighed. “I haven’t been sleeping well. I know it’s a terrible excuse, but I haven’t had a good grip on my temper lately. There are… other things, too.”

I heard the crack of Rhan Harrower’s spine breaking under my axe. I saw the ruin of Princess Maerlys’s face. I felt my flesh boil as centipedes of fire reached for me, half in hunger and half in longing.

How the hell was I supposed to steer Emma away from the darkness, when my own soul was so loud? I felt so tired. I needed sleep.

In the window's reflection, I watched Cat inhale sharply. Her skin started to regain its rosy color, and her macabre features began to mute. She brushed her bangs back from her eyes and stood abruptly, patting her skirts back into order. Then she stepped to my side. She placed a hand on my elbow, and there was no invitation in it this time, no heat.

“I’m here, big man. Tell me how I can help.”

I met her eyes, seeing the certainty in them. She didn’t doubt me, or herself. Cat knew what she was, where she fit into the world, and she’d made peace with that a long time ago. She followed her heart, managed her impulses, and cared not a wit if the world saw her as wicked.

I closed my eyes just a moment, pushing back the doubts, the fears, the exhaustion. There would be time for all of that later. When I opened my eyes again, I felt like clean metal. Focused. Sharp.

“Do you still want some justice for Cael?” I asked her.

A smoldering fire that had nothing to do with lust flickered to life in Cat’s eyes. “You’re damn right I do.”

“Then let’s find out why Karog is here.”