The Expedition had begun with pomp and circumstance. All manner of people had gathered, both participants and citizens there to see them off. The baron made an impressive speech from atop the town gatehouse, gallant and stirring in his conviction. He talked about the splendor of the forces gathered, of the rewards that awaited them if they could capture the monster alive, of the surety of their victory. He would be with them every step of the way, sharing the dangers and braving the Bloodsucking Forest and the monster they hunted.

Few nobles were so willing to risk themselves. Lyanna had heard approving sentiments from the gathered adventurers, mercenaries and bearers.

For all her worries the day before, Lyanna had felt reassured watching the huge procession set off. With the forces they had gathered she was confident they could capture any monster. There were mercenaries and adventurers from all over the continent after all, humans of every skin color and more than a few dwarves, beastfolk and other species.

That just left the matter of finding it – and there too was good news. Her search spell had re-established good contact with the mimic. The response was faint enough that the creature had to be a long way off, but it was alive, that much she was confident of. She just had to keep tracking it’s movements.

But it was said that no plan survived contact with the enemy.

In this case that enemy was not the mimic, but the forest itself. As morning turned to afternoon and the army of glory-seekers traipsed through the Bloodsucking Forest the realities of a hunt in hostile territory were gradually dawning on the non-adventurers.

Marcus spoke up as they crested a rocky hillside, holding a pale-skinned hand against the sun, looking back at the huge trail of people trampling flat the deadly needlegrass. “The baggage train’s got to be a mile behind. Are we really going to make it to the river by sundown?”

It was Dolm who answered. “No chance we’ll reach the river. We’ll have to stop early, maybe clear some trees if there isn’t enough space.”

“Can’t the bearers hurry it up?” Marcus suggested irritably.

“They’re pulling carts by hand through the forest and half of them have never even worn armor before, Marcus.” Lyanna reminded him. “Do you remember what you were like the first time we took you in here? I believe your exact words were ‘I’m dying, I’m dying, just let the stupid grass finish me already’.”

Her younger brother gave her a sullen glare.

Dolm just snorted in amusement. “Not just the baggage train that’s slow anyway. Mercs are lagging too. Mostly us adventurers at the front now. So much for marching order.”

His deep voice had a resigned tone. The dark-skinned man was twice Marcus’ age after all. “No point getting bent out of shape about it, kid, this is how jobs for rich clients are. Had plenty like this in Bosquerime too. Nothing’s simple with their kind.”

“You worked for nobles there?” Marcus asked, raised an eyebrow skeptically. Dolm had led his own adventuring party back in his native land, but it seemed Marcus found it hard to imagine the plainspoken, down to earth archer courting the coin of the nobility.

Dolm chuckled. “Nothing like that, kid, we were small time back then, only stone rank. Sometimes we’d get subcontracted by mercs or soldiers working for nobles. Learnt the hard way what it’s like trying to drag a bunch of knights through a forest in the middle of winter.”

“Hold on, Dolm,” Lyanna pipes up, grinning. “I remember you telling me about at least one noble who hired you. It was just after you were promoted to silver rank, you’d just-”

“Hey, shut up, you know that’s-”

“Embarrassing?”

“Private!”

“Well now I have to hear it.” Marcus laughed. “What happened? Some baron fire you for getting drunk on the job?”

“I wish.” Dolm grunted morosely.

“Come on sis, let me in on the joke,” Marcus insisted, seeing the mirth in Lyanna’s eye.

“I couldn’t possibly; it’s not my story to tell.”

Dolm shot her an unimpressed look. “Ah stuff it, Lyanna, we both know you’ll tell him next time you’re alone.”

“Assuming you won’t next time you’re drunk.” Came her retort. “It only took me 3 tankards to get it out of you.”

“Hey, they were real beer, it was strong stuff!”

Lyanna gave him a withering look.

“Oh fine. May as well. It’s my fault for telling you.”

“Hah, nice, sis!” Marcus grinned. “Let’s hear this story, Dolm, I’ll buy you a drink when we get back to Faron.”

“Well… as Lyanna was saying, it was back when we’d just made silver rank. We were still based in Port Hoarind back in Bosquerime and the countess was at the ceremony. She was there to pin a medal on some gold-rankers, but apparently I caught her eye when they announced us.”

“I figured you liked them old, huh Dolm?” Marcus grinned.

“She was twenty and she looked it, kid. Never seen a more gorgeous woman before or since, prettier than the frostwind glittering in the moonlight over the bay.”

“What are you, a bard?”

“Nah, but they liked to sing about her sometimes. How beautiful she was, how pure she was, bard stuff, you know. Oh, and how rich she was too. So when she asked for us after the ceremony I wasn’t about to argue.”

Dolm jumped down from a rock and paused to wipe his ebony brow as she surveyed the forest ahead. “Think we should keep going this way, Lyanna? Path’s narrow ahead but the old gulley should get us up to a better trail for the wagons.”

Lyanna nodded. “Sounds right.”

“Hey, come on,” Marcus protested. “What happened with the girl? Did you bed her?”

“You have a lot to learn about women,” said Lyanna, shaking her head. “Especially noblewomen.”

Dolm nodded. “No kidding there. Anyway, she wanted us to escort her on a hunt, pleasure trip she called it, into the Everwood. Pretty tame place long as you stick close to the city, seemed like an easy job.”

“So what went wrong?”

“She wouldn’t stick close to the city. We were on the trail of a hart, big white one, she wanted it bad.” Dolm grimaced as he recalled the events. “I told her it was stupid – we were silver rank, but she was just a pampered kid. Her mom was a duchess, practically gave her Hoarind as a coming of age present.”

“A whole city?” Marcus asked incredulously.

Dolm nodded, continuing. “She didn’t much like someone telling her it straight. For a bit I thought she was gonna have my head on a spike. Turned out she wanted something else though….”

“It did involve your head though, right?” Marcus teased.

Dolm gave an uncharacteristic blush. “In a manner of speaking. Made me pose for her… clothes off. She wanted a model to paint.”

Marcus burst out laughing.

“Yeah yeah, real funny, you got any idea how cold it is in Bosquerime? The snow never melts in the Everwood!”

“Sounds like she didn’t have a lot to paint then, did she?” Marcus sniggered.

“I gave her plenty to work with. That was the problem. By the time we caught her hart she didn’t just want to paint me.”

“Wow, so you bedded the countess after all?” Marcus looked genuinely impressed.

“As if. She bedded me, kid. Just a bit of fun for her, slumming it with some adventurer for hire. I was stupid thinking it was anything else.”

“It sounds like it was pretty good for you too though – she was gorgeous and loaded, right?”

“Sure was. Probably why I kept seeing her after the hunt. She’d sneak me into the castle when she was bored, went on for a month until one night her servant walked in on us. Along with her father, the bishop. Come for a surprise visit, turned out. Wanted to surprise his daughter.”

“They caught you in the act?!”

“In an act.”

“Well what were you doing?”

“Turned out she liked horses as well as harts. She… had me in a bridle.”

“Like… a horse’s bridle?” Marcus asked incredulously.

“When he walked in she was riding on my back and using the crop on me.”

Even Lyanna and Dolm himself joined Marcus in laughter, the latter’s mirth so protracted that by the time he finished he was turning purple.

“So the bishop caught his daughter literally riding you?! What in the name of Soleil did you say?!”

“Through the bridle? Best I could manage was a neigh.”

Marcus looked ready to pass out guffawing at that.

“After that I let her do the talking. She told them I was her riding instructor, giving her tips on controlling her horse better. Thank the gods the leather barding covered my ass.”

“And they actually bought that?!”

“Why do you think I left Bosquerime?”

That finished Marcus off, to the point that Thunderbolt had to fall back for a few minutes and let other adventurers lead the procession.

The laugh had done Lyanna good, but she was quick to get them moving again, taking up the lead once more. The last thing she needed was anyone blaming her for the slow progress.

The Bloodsucking Forest wasn’t an easy place for newcomers – she could have told anyone who’d listen that. The problem was that no-one would. Needlegrass alone had cost them a good hour through various stoppages, such as when one of the gold-rank adventurers from the capital arrogantly insisted on taking the lead, only to slip on the metal soles of his boots and topple off a rock, face-planting into the grass hard enough that his visor gave out.

If the expedition hadn’t had healers it would have been the end of the man’s career. As it was he was recovering at the back of the procession with the delegation from the church. Healing or no, being stabbed in the eyes by a hundred razor sharp needles had to be a traumatic experience.

It was far from the only one of course.

An especially dense bearer had collapsed after trying to pick a bloodfruit to sell back in town, despite all the warnings.

Shortly after one of the mercenary scout parties ranging ahead of the main force had missed reporting in. Finding and rescuing them had held things up once more. When it was discovered that they had stumbled into a ravine and gotten lost the baron had agreed to stop using mercenaries in the scout groups.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Not that they were making good time even discounting interruptions. The pace was limited by their slowest members, which included not just luggage bearers weighed down with all manner of supplies on carts, but also the six-person litter in which the baron rode. To the man’s credit, he did disembark and walk when he had to, but he was too unaccustomed to exercise to go far afoot.

Lyanna only hoped that the mimic wouldn’t move too much for a while. At the pace they were setting it could outrun them with a gentle saunter.

~~~

Come evening the expedition had been forced to make camp on an area of flatland between two hills, well short of the river. Rocky terrain kept back the trees and magic had burned away enough needlegrass for them to make a safe camp. Safe from perforation by plant life at least. Perforation by razorflies or other monsters was still a real concern. They were keeping an active watch and burning extra torches to try to ward off predators.

The Lastborn and the adventurers from the capital had their first run-in with razorflies earlier that afternoon, when a small swarm descended on the bearers near the rear. Lyanna and most of the native adventurers had been at the head of the column, and by the time she’d reached them it was a murder scene, multiple noble brats and low-born baggage handlers bleeding all over, one of the latter dead.

None of the survivors had been allowed to expire of course, but confidence had been shaken on multiple sides. Some of the luggage bearers wanted to turn back, while the mercenaries were horrified by how easily the razorflies could blind or lacerate their foes.

The adventurers meanwhile were questioning how much use their vaunted Lastborn would be against monsters, after they had refused training or advice on how to handle the enemies in the forest.

Thankfully the razorflies were generally not active at night.

Darkness normally meant bed for adventurers out in the wilds, but there too their good advice went unheeded. During the day hunting parties had brought down a good haul of fresh meat and so the baron had elected to raise morale by giving out extra rations that night, and it had turned into a rowdy scene of drinking and feasting.

Walking between the impractically large tents Lyanna felt like she’d wandered into a battlefield somewhere. It was a scene she never would have imagined seeing inside the Bloodsucking Forest. It was hard to imagine any monster daring approach such a commotion.

Or so Lyanna thought, until she rounded one of the larger tents and heard shouting up ahead, sounds of alarm rather than merriment.

She ran towards the raised voices, drawing her sword.

As she rounded a large canvas corner a she scowled, returning the weapon to the sheath. There wasn’t a monster to be seen.

Instead she found a fistfight well in progress, knights and commoners exchanging blows. She recognized some of the people at the middle of it all as an adventuring party, The Hunting Hawks. They seemed to be fighting a group of the Lastborn, but the tumult had already absorbed dozens more people as the fight spread.

She wasn’t the only one who had heard the commotion, the baron’s men were already on the scene, pleading ineffectually for calm, and as she watched the baron himself rushed up amid his bodyguards.

“Alright, that’s quite enough of that now!” he called out, clapping his hands. “Stop playing at silly beggars and settle down, this is conduct quite unbecoming of the valorous Lastborn!”

A bottle flew past his head and the baron shied back as it sprayed wine on his cloak.

“I say! This is really not on! Stop all this at once!” he shouted over the commotion. “A bit of rough and tumble’s one thing, but this is getting out of hand! You there, lieutenant Jowe, control your people, damn it! This is totally unacceptable! I command you in my name, Lord Huress Faron, cease posthaste!”

If Jowe heard the baron at all he didn’t seem to care – he was too busy trading blows with a silver-ranker.

“My word, are you knights or knaves? No, rapscallions I should say! I demand a halt to this buffoonery at once you damnable jackanapes, are you no better than common rabble?!”

The fight was still spreading, the baron’s people closing in around him even as he tried to take charge, calling for more soldiers. A woman in armor ran into them, arms locked with a young adventurer she was fighting, and a moment later the huddle were engulfed in the fight, the baron wailing as he was knocked on his ample rear.

If things carried on the expedition would end before they even reached the mimic – Lyanna had to act. As little as she wanted to make more enemies, especially with the Lastborn, she had no choice.

She directed mana to her throat, empowering her voice. “Enough!” she shouted, her supernaturally strengthened shout heard by all over the hubbub. “All of you stop, or I’ll stop you!”

A knight sneered at her, lurching over. “Shut it, peasant,” he slurred, throwing a fist.

Lyanna took a certain pleasure in laying him out with a palm strike to the chin. He was inebriated enough that he couldn’t seem to get back up.

With him dealt with she drew her staff. If they didn’t want to listen that was fine. She’d give them an earful not of words, but of magic. A good peal of thunderclaps would have the drunks cowering and running for cover.

She focused mana into her staff, building pressure, the gem glowing brighter and brighter as she chanted. A few of the brawlers looked over, but most were still occupied fighting.

It was just as Lyanna was about to chant that she sensed another magic activating nearby. The speed and power were abnormal; far quicker and stronger than any magic she could produce.

The newcomer had begun their magic second, yet they finished first, a huge ripple of mana blowing across the campsite, followed by an inhuman shriek, rising in pitch until it burst with a crack like electricity.

A moment later metallic objects everywhere were thrown back, anyone still in armor sent tumbling head over heels, weapons and utensils scattered! Those with no metal about them were still knocked over by others who did, the drunken brawlers going down like so many rotten trees toppling each other.

Lyanna had to grip her sword tight and anchor herself to avoid being tossed prone or disarmed, but she was the only one in the path of the outburst left standing.

Opposite her she saw the culprit, a figure wreathed in an aura of spectral fire, flowing like water yet blindingly bright to behold, radiating heat enough to melt the ground where she trod.

Spreading her hands the energy arced between her gauntlets like liquid lightning, then with a gesture she sent the dazzling arcs projecting out through the air with shrill squeaks and pops that hurt the ear.

There was silence in the wake of the display, Jalera walking forward, the miscreants scrambling back from the inhuman figure of the diamond-rank adventurer clad in her signature magic.

Lyanna had never seen it in action before. It was more beautiful than she’d imagined, subtle shifts in the colors playing over the surface of the ‘fire’, the movements hypnotic.

“Who will explain this? Or shall we proceed to summary executions?” Jalera’s tone made clear it was no idle threat.

Both sides were much more cooperative after that.

The story was that lieutenant Jowe and a group of Lastborn mercenaries had ‘stumbled into the wrong tent’ and found a pack with several bottles of pricey wine to which they helped themselves. Said booze belonged to the leader of The Hunting Hawks, a silver-ranker who drank even more than Dolm.

Given that the tent was a quarter the size of any the mercenaries had brought, a simple inverted ‘v’ design one had to crouch to enter, it was no surprise that the man hadn’t bought that excuse. Not that they’d offered to pay for their mistake of course.

It all too easy to see how the incident escalated into a fight from there.

Lady Ondora arrived while the culprits were explaining themselves. The captain of the Lastborn was resplendent in her engraved armor, the noble lady pointing fingers at anyone too low-born to talk back to her from the moment she reached the scene.

In the end the baron grandly declared that he would replace the alcohol and ordered both sides to put the matter behind them – and sleep it off. Ondora seemed satisfied with that, accepting the lack of punishment for either side, but to hear her tell it the adventurers had somehow been the ones to blame.

The various adventurers themselves were left to varyingly mutinous murmurings; however Jalera sent them back to their tents before they got any ugly ideas.

The crowd had just started to disperse, the makings of many hangovers already brewing, when yet another disruption came.

It was a messenger, one of the soldiers under the baron. Breathlessly she explained that he and the other expedition leaders were needed at the baron’s tent at once – there’d been a break-in.

By the time they got there a young adventurer was struggling in the grip of three soldiers, forced to the ash and dirt on the ground outside the baron’s palatial tent, one woman kneeling on his back.

The structure behind them was more of a pavilion than a tent, a central pole giving it an elevated ceiling high enough that Lyanna couldn’t even have reached it, expensive folding furniture and all the luxuries that only the nobility could afford making it more homely than some actual houses. With several chambers separated by silk sheets it was both the baron’s personal sleeping quarters and the meeting room for the expedition.

“Alright, alright, what’s this bother about now?” the baron demanded irritably. He still had burnt needlegrass and soil clinging to his clothing after his earlier fall, but no-one mentioned it.

“We caught this animal in your tent, my lord.” The woman on the beastfolk man’s back reported. “Snuck in during the commotion earlier, we found him stealing silverware.”

The otherwise human-looking man’s fox-like ears twitched angrily. “I never stole nothing! I was sleeping! Next I know these lot are draggin’ me around and rubbin’ my face in the dirt!” His voice was high and youthful – he was likely little older than Marcus, not much more than a boy.

One of the other soldiers hit him. “Speak when you’re spoken to, thief!”

“There’s alcohol on his breath,” commented the guildmaster, Bomond, kneeling over the younger man. “This man is one of the adventurers from the capital.”

“Immaterial.” Lady Ondora sniffed, a look of revulsion on her refined features. “It makes no matter where it’s from, a beast is a beast. Cut off a hand and send the wretch on its way, Lord Faron.”

“Please wait, my lady!” Bomond interjected. “As an adventurer this man is not simply some peasant. He is part of the Guild and we must investigate the charges against him.”

“Adventurers, peasants, they’re all filthy laborers who come home to some dismal shack stinking at the end of each day. What difference is there? This one isn’t even human; just some stray fox. It dirties the air with its mere presence. We could catch something you know! It should be grateful we’re letting it live at all.” Ondora replied with a laugh and a wave of her hand.

Lyanna held back a grimace at the ignoble lady, knowing better than to speak up or show her distaste. Adventurers rarely had much choice in the company they kept; they went where there was money and worked for and with whoever would pay – and that meant working for a lot of vile people.

Of course it also meant working with beastfolk from time to time; real beastfolk, the kind with fur or scales, not just fluffy ears. Lyanna had been hesitant the first time. Beastfolk didn’t exactly have a good reputation in society. Not human society anyway.

But the beastfolk she’d met had been no different than the humans she worked with. Some were good people, some weren’t. Their coin had always spent just as well as any too.

To see Ondora so disgusted by nothing more than pointy ears on a man’s head would have been absurd to any career adventurer. Once you fought for your life alongside someone things like having a tail didn’t much matter. If anything the beastfolk were more like human commoners than the human nobles were. Or so Lyanna liked to think anyway. She was aware that not all adventurers shared her views.

The ‘fox’ was still struggling under the metal knee of the guard as the leaders so callously discussed his fate. “I told you I was asleep! If I was in the tent I musta sleep-walked there, ‘cause I never stole nothing! I’m telling you!”

“Hah, a likely story. That’s quite enough silly lies, gag him,” the baron muttered darkly, one of the guards clamping a hand over the struggling man’s mouth. “No no, we really can’t have this sort of thing going on – he’ll have to be punished most severely, Bomey. Can’t have the beastfolk get any ideas or there’ll be a dozen of the blighters sneaking in tomorrow!”

“My Lord,” Bomond replied uneasily. “It wouldn’t be… wise to be too hard on this man. If the other adventurers find out, after the incident earlier tonight-“

“Guildmaster,” Ondora said sternly, hands clanking on her hips. “Surely you can’t mean to compare theft from a baron, a member of the nobility, by a beastfolk of all things, to a petty squabble in the ranks over mere alcohol.”

“Is that right, Bomond?” the baron asked, all familiarity gone from his voice.

“No no, of course not my lord!” Bomond backpedalled hastily. “I just mean that… well… many of the adventurers with us have beastfolk comrades, friends even. If we show mercy here it would help… smooth over any unrest. Perhaps just a brand – he didn’t actually make off with anything.”

“Hah. Seems you lost your spine as well as your edge, Bo.”

At the smoky voice of Jalera the others fell quiet, many looking confused. The guildmaster glared back at his former party leader. “Jalera… you have a suggestion?”

“Yes, let us hear the wisdom of the famed adventurer and hero of Bellwood,” Lady Ondora suggested, her false smile not reaching her eyes. “I’m certain that miss Jalera knows exactly how to deal with criminal rabble.”

“But it seems you do not, Ondora.” Jalera said simply, giving the noblewoman a disdainful look.

“Ah, excuse me, I must have misheard you-” Ondora began.

“I doubt it, you aren’t deaf. Stupid maybe, but your ears work, do they not?”

“You dare speak such to me, to the daughter of the duke?!” Ondora’s face was turning red, her hand on the hilt of her sword. That she didn’t draw it spoke more to Jalera than to her self-restraint.

“Fifth and last-born daughter. Or did you forget your own company name?”

“Lord Faron, this woman is out of line! She has lost her mind! If you can’t control your employees then I shall have to-“

“To. What.” Jalera asked. There was a chill in the air, her icy gaze threatening more than Ondora’s words ever could.

Lyanna couldn’t say for sure, but in a smaller nation like Bellwood she doubted that any daughter of a duke would be worth more than a diamond-rank adventurer.

“I will tell you what you will do, Lady Ondora. You will return to your tent to rest after a long day. You will gather your troops in the morning to reprimand those involved in the earlier incident. You will confiscate any alcohol they still have and inform them that theft is not tolerated in this expedition.”

The baron held a hand up. “N-now, steady on there, J-Jalera, uh, you know you can’t just speak that way to Lady Ondora.”

“Do you mean to stop me, Baron Faron?” she asked simply. “If you’re displeased with my work then I shall take my leave. There are other contracts awaiting me in the capital after all.”

“N-no, but-”

“What is the punishment for burglary in Faron?”

“Well, that would rather depend on the circumstances – on the perpetrator’s nature and past misdeeds, any number of factors….”

“What is the punishment for entering a simple dwelling to steal another man’s cutlery?”

“Cutlery? Now see here, you can’t treat sneaking into a baron’s tent to pilfer valuables the same as taking some sap’s wooden spoons!”

“The punishment would be a year of hard labor,” Bomond volunteered. The baron glared at him, but the guildmaster looked unapologetic.

“This beastfolk man will face a year of hard labor once he returns to Faron. Until then he will be bound to a cart to serve as a bearer.”

Jalera’s words were a proclamation, one even the baron didn’t argue with.

After that the disturbances were finally done with for the evening, but Lyanna didn’t feel much like sleeping. Instead she went back to walking the campsite, stalking moodily past a variety of tents and stacks of supplies.

With Jalera around there was hardly any need for Lyanna or Thunderbolt. Not that Lyanna had the standing to argue with the baron or the Lastborn to begin with. Far from all being in it together as the baron had suggested, she was getting the distinct impression that she and her team were little more than glorified guides.

That wasn’t what troubled her however. They would still receive a share of the riches if they succeeded – the discoverers of the creature would be recognized even if they weren’t seen as the ones responsible for its capture.

What really frightened her was how easily the baron and Ondora had talked of brutal punishments for the young adventurer – and the look on the baron’s face when Bomond had displeased him….

She’d tried to get some sleep after that, but her thoughts weighed on her. In the end she got up again to finish her earlier walk.

The night had grown long, most of the expedition members already snoring in their bedrolls.

Lyanna’s mind wandered even as her legs did, so much so she almost stumbled right into a figure lurking in the shadow of one of the larger tents.

“Sorry, didn’t see you,” she muttered, moving past them.

“Entirely my fault.” The androgynous figure held out a hand, stepping forward to accost her. “You seem troubled, miss Lyanna.”

The speaker was pale with smooth plain features that suggested a human anywhere from fifteen to forty. The unremarkable face was matched by a flat voice. The sort of person one might meet a dozen times before remembering.

“I’m sorry, do I know you?”

“Ah, no, I’m one of the adventurers from the capital. Name’s Arn, a swordsman.” He bowed his head.

“If you’re from the capital how do you know me, Arn?”

“How could I not? You are our guide. From what I hear this whole expedition is thanks to you.”

Lyanna frowned. “I’m really not all that important.”

“You might not realize it, but the country would not agree. Already the mages are speculating as to the new magical secrets they could unlock through the study of a live mimic. The artisans too are eager to learn the secrets of its shape-shifting body. And perhaps it can be tamed? Even bred? Even aside from the military advantages, the possibilities are remarkable.”

“Assuming we catch it,” she answered dully. She was already growing tired of Arn.

“Naturally. There’s the rub, hmm? Success means great riches – not so great for you as for the baron or the Lastborn, but more than you’d make adventuring to be sure – but failure… well, the baron is not known for his forgiving nature.”

“I thought you were from the capital,” Lyanna pointed out, eyebrow peaking.

“Indeed, that’s how I know, but perhaps the news didn’t reach back to Faron.”

“What news?”

“Well, it’s more of a rumor really. Who knows how true it is….” He looked about for other listeners.

They were alone. He lent in closer. “You may be aware that the present Baron Faron is the son of the elder baron, Aress Faron, a recent change. Not by choice it seems. Lord Faron the elder was removed from his ancestral seat by order of the royal court. Quite the scandal really, but it was all hushed up.”

“If it was hushed up then how did an adventurer like you hear about it?”

He winked. “You know how people talk. In this case they talk about how Aress Faron made certain payments to certain people, just days before one of his political rivals turned up dead. Just rumors of course, but… would you believe me if I told you I used to be an assassin? A few former colleagues of mine were involved. They turned up dead before the investigators could get to them.”

“You’re saying the previous baron killed his own men to hide his tracks?”

“Oh my no, you’re the one saying that. I’m just telling you what I heard….”

“Right,” Lyanna said skeptically. “You’re an assassin turned adventurer who just happened to be in on this. And if the old baron was so untrustworthy, why take a job to work for his son?”

Arn chuckled, a mirthless laugh. “I’m just a face in the crowd here, Lyanna, and a job’s a job. Of course that’s no comfort to some people. Like that poor fool caught in the baron’s tent. From what I hear his lordship was ready to start chopping pieces off the boy.”

“How did you hear that?”

“Word travels fast around camp. I make a point of staying informed. Some people are saying he was innocent, that he just stumbled into the wrong tent, too drunk to know better. But if not for Jalera he’d be short a hand and looking for a new line of work.”

“What? How could he stumble in, the tent had guards!”

“Did it? Then how did they only catch him after he was already inside? And wouldn’t there be more valuable targets than a set of silver spoons?”

Arn had a point there, and Lyanna didn’t like it.

“How did he get inside then?”

“Simple, someone wasn’t at their post. They came back, found him in there and panicked.”

She shook her head. “That’s a stretch.”

“More of a stretch than the boy being so drunk he thought he’d break in undetected and help himself to a baron’s goods? Here in the Bloodsucking Forest? Where was he going to go? What was he going to do with whatever he stole?”

Arn from the capital was starting to make an uncomfortable amount of sense to Lyanna.

“Let’s say I buy your story, what can I do about it? It’s too late to help him now; the baron would never go back on his order – especially after it was forced on him by Jalera.”

“You’re right of course.” Arn nodded. “It’s too late to save him – but his fate isn’t so bad. A year of labor. He could even return to adventuring afterwards. No, I’d say the one you should be worrying about here is yourself, Lyanna.”

“Me? I didn’t steal anything!”

“Naturally. But after seeing tonight’s little drama play out… what do you think the baron will do to you if you fail to bring him his mimic?”

~~~

‘Arn’ didn’t let his amusement show on his face as he watched the adventurer swallow the story he was spinning. The name was as fake as the tale, but both served a purpose. He could see the doubts he had helped cultivate on Lyanna’s face.

It was important not to push too hard however. There was still ample time for the expedition to fail, and Lyanna was only one of the weak points he could target.

For a master of mental intrusion sowing discord was trivially simple. With the forbidden sorcery of manipulating minds it took only a few minutes to induce the sleeping beastfolk man into wandering off, slipping into the baron’s tent during the commotion of the fight between the adventurers and the mercenaries. The fight had been a stroke of luck, but had it not occurred a little arson would have caused a similar panic – and with so many rowdy drinkers around there would have been little suspicion.

As for the results, it seemed they had exceeded expectations. It was a shame that the wretched fox had escaped any real punishment of course – that would have likely seen half the adventurers abandoning ship entirely – but the leadership almost coming to blows was just as good.

At this rate the Lastborn and Jalera would both be back in the capital within a week, and Baron Faron would, with a little luck, never return from the forest at all.

Earl Randire would be delighted with his work.