They got up and started moving along the path. Their pace was blessedly faster, even on a largely disused wilderness path. It did twist a great deal but that just meant being able to hear other travellers before visual contact.

It only happened once, shortly after their second stop. Hoofbeats sounded from up ahead and the group darted into the foliage. Irina peeked between branches as a very rural-looking man rode by at a moderate pace. He vanished as quickly as he’d appeared and they kept on going.

The afternoon was wearing on when Kent stopped. Irina had noticed the branching path already, but the other two didn’t until Kent parted some of the low-hanging branches.

“Now, that is truly disused,” Elseth commented.

“And that is exactly what we need,” Kent said.

He stood completely still, clearly deep in thought, and everyone knew better than to interrupt.

“Yes,” the man finally said. “This is it. A little to the north-east is where the river cuts to the west.”

He indicated with a sweep of his arm.

“And I know there once stood a village just south of a crossing. This surely must be the route there. If we reach it before nightfall we might sleep with a roof over our heads before continuing on in the morning.”

“I like roofs,” Elseth said cheerfully. “I’ve slept without them often enough to appreciate them.”

“The greatest magic of mankind,” Jon said with his deadpan brand of humour. “The ability to keep rain from hitting the ground.”

“Disturb as little as you can for the first few steps,” Kent advised and indicated the start of the path. “Just to be safe.”

Irina had faith in her own ability to leave little in the way of tracks and Kent clearly knew what he was doing. She was less confident in Jon and Elseth, but what was there to be done?

The forest was getting noticeably older. The trunks rose high into the air, covered with dead branches that had long since been cut off from sunlight. There was a different feel to sounds and to the air.

Irina had never concerned herself much with theology, but she’d long felt that the threshold to the underworld had to be similar to areas like this. It just made sense. Everything was so still. Even the wind had little power here.

The idea became ever more apt as the sun sank lower, casting the forest into ever-deeper gloom.

“By the Sun Mother’s love, will someone please say something!” Elseth said with overwrought drama. “I am so bored!”

“We fled from a demon last night,” Jon reminded her. “That would do a normal person for quite a while.”

“I am sure it would,” Elseth replied.

“Irina,” Kent said. “These two have spoken of you from time to time, but really only in connection with your collective adventures. Would you like to tell me how you got into the life?”

Irina smiled at herself, while idly swinging her club through the air.

“I’m afraid there is nothing exciting about it. Lack of excitement is why I left home. Because ‘home’ was an isolated hamlet deep in a forest, far from any lanes. The only things of interest were stories. As adulthood began to dawn I realised that my options were to either settle into the rut and fade away into nothing, or to try to experience some stories of my own.”

“Ah, the stories,” Elseth said.

“They do tend to leave out the ugly bits,” Irina said, thinking back on the child she’d once been. “And the boredom in between adventures. And the wet, freezing nights. But there IS excitement to be had.”

She turned to look at her two friends.

“Monsters to outwit, outlaws to battle and treasures to be found. It’s just harder than the stories make out.”

“The monsters and outlaws I can live with,” Jon said. “I just wish it wasn’t so hard to get a good price for the older artefacts.”

The sun reached the horizon and its beams were cast sideways across the land. It lasted just enough for them to make out the ruins in the distance. Irina had visited her share of ruins and yet the sight of crumbling husks always had an odd power to move her.

The village was surrounded by the remains of a wall, in such a poor state that she couldn’t even tell if the gap they entered through had been the gate. The area was of course overgrown, and about half the houses still stood.

People once lived here, Irina reflected. Were born. And died.

“I think we can risk a little light,” Jon said.

Elseth ignited a modest ball, casting harsh light on the damage and decay around them.

“You’ve gotten better at that, I notice,” Irina commented.

“Practice makes perfect, as they say.”

Something caught Irina’s eye and she walked up to a half-collapsed house. She parted some of the plant matter that was taking over the doorway and the light fell on distinctive scratch marks all over the frame. No doubt the vanished door had shown similar damage.

“The Demon War,” Kent commented heavily.

Irina dragged her finger along one of the deep gouges, noting the width. Someone inside had been forced to listen to this, trapped and helpless, as demons were ravaging their village. There would have been screams of terror and pain, and the unearthly noises of the demons themselves.

“There will be bones on the ground here,” Elseth observed. “Let’s hope they are at rest.”

“Yes,” Irina said softly as she stepped away from the doorway. “Let’s hope.”

They walked about, looking for a place to spend the night. There were a few decent candidates in sight but no good ones. This place had been abandoned for over a decade, after all.

Irina felt glad to have not been part of all that. Mid-Melgen’s demon problem had long since been brought under control by the time she was put into service, but the remembered fear and grief of anyone she dared ask about those days painted a gruesome picture.

“This one looks serviceable,” Kent said, indicating the largest building Irina had seen here so far.

Elseth sent her light closer to it and it did look mostly intact.

“Well, let’s check it out,” Jon said.

They found the doorway on the north side. This had clearly been some sort of gathering house, with a firepit in the centre and the rotting remains of simple benches spread about.

The double doors had fallen off their hinges and were becoming one with the ground, and the light revealed quite a few holes in the roof. But it didn’t look like it would rain any time soon and Irina had certainly slept in worse places.

“This is the one!” Elseth chirped as she walked in and put away her bag.

“Yes, I would say so,” Jon agreed and put away his own bag. “Let’s gather wood for the fire.”

“A fire?” Elseth said.

“I’d say we can risk one,” the man said and looked to the other two for support.

Irina considered the state of the walls, the cover provided by the surrounding buildings, wall, and the forest.

“Yes, I think we can.”

Kent agreed and they gathered usable wood from the interior and the surrounding buildings. When Irina returned with her own bundle she found Kent kneeling by the firepit.

“It’s been used,” he told them and picked up a handful of ash. “Maybe two weeks ago.”

He let ash fall through his fingers.

“Hm. Are you sure this place is as isolated as you said?” Jon said.

“I am, yes. This is not a convenient stop for anyone on their way to anywhere.”

“It is to us,” Elseth said.

“And we are trying to avoid the Bright Lords,” Jon pointed out.

“So it’s either outlaws or lost travellers,” Irina concluded.

“Well, whoever it was, they are well gone,” Jon said. “Let’s not worry about it.”

Kent started up a fire and Irina was again immensely relieved to sit down. For a little while she was happy to just sit with her back up against a pillar with her eyes closed. She was the last to help herself to the bread and pork and after that she very much felt ready for sleep.

During moments of full silence she could hear the river. The empty doorway faced the north and Irina looked out through it.

“After we cross the river,” she said sleepily. “Then what?”

“Well, the river continues on west, as I said,” Kent replied. “Before cutting north again. Vyslak stands right by the turn. Have you been here?”

“No, I have never been this far north-east,” Irina told him.

“We passed through there on our way south. It survived through all that’s happened, but everything north-east of it is effectively abandoned. If we keep to the wilderness we should be able to reach the border. And then we can get to Ynglas.”

“And that secret meeting,” Irina said. She hadn’t really given much thought to their end goal.

She thought back to her one encounter with Prince Walder. He’d seemed reasonable enough, though their interactions had been too brief and transactional to confirm any such thing.

What would he ask her? And what would she tell him?

“With a bit of luck we will make it there in four days,” Kent assured her.

Four days, Irina mouthed as she closed her eyes again. Four days until she was fully out of Lady Lumiara’s reach. Four days would decide how the rest of her life played out.

She touched her neck.

Here she was; back to wandering with old friends, sleeping rough in between bouts of extreme excitement. Back to the life she’d chosen for herself.

She let out a sigh, but kept it silent.

“Hello?”

The voice from outside roused her with a start. She looked towards the door again and gripped her club. The others had hands on their respective weapons.

“Hello?” the male voice said again and Irina spotted a hint of light outside.

No one said anything or dared make a move. Irina realised the others were looking at her and a moment later it dawned on her why. But the voice sounded nothing like Bors or anyone else she knew.

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“Hello yourself,” she said in reply.

Whoever this stranger was, they already knew someone was here. She and the others rose but did not relax.

“Are we the first?”

“What?”

Footsteps approached. It was a group, though not a very large one. Into the doorway walked a man with a lantern in one hand. He was clad in sturdy, worn clothes, which along with his hair and ragged beard bore the marks of time spent in the wilderness. A battleaxe hung from a ring in his belt and he took in the four armed strangers with a calculating air.

The men behind him were slightly obscured but seemed to be much the same: Ragged and armed. Irina counted four.

“Well, good evening,” the man said calmly. “Blessings on this house, as I was taught to say. I was expecting some other folk here.”

“They must not have arrived yet,” Jon said. “We thought we were entirely alone in this part of the forest.”

The man smiled but that calculating look stayed in his eyes.

“So did we. We and the rest, I mean. This isn’t a place one comes to for company.”

He stepped further in.

“A lot of bad memories here.”

Irina was neither born nor raised in Mid-Melgen but had by now gained a good understanding of the accent. This man was definitely native but not, as far as she could tell, to these particular parts.

“Who are you folks and what brings you here?”

“We’re travellers,” Jon said. “Fortune seekers, problem solvers... adventurers, if you’ll accept the word.”

“One might as well,” the man replied.

“As for why we’re here, we’re staying out of sight of the Bright Lords. Just like you. We’re heading back across the border.”

The man smiled some more.

“My name is Tallin.”

He pointed at their packs.

“Got anything good in those?”

“Nothing worth stealing, I’m afraid,” Jon said. He still stood ready to draw his sword. “Just bread and salted pork. This has been a fruitless journey.”

“The lords from beyond do make fruit-picking difficult,” the man sighed. “There’s precious little room left for people who want to live their own way. But it’s been a while since I had meat. And we just happen to have some honey mead with us. So a bit of ours for a bit of yours. What do you say?”

Irina and the others shared a look. There seemed to be agreement.

“Come enjoy our fire,” Jon said and indicated Irina’s side of the pit.

She stood up and joined the other three on their side as the strangers filed in and sat. They were a sullen-looking bunch, scarred by violence and marked by the elements. Their kind had become a very familiar sight through her adult life.

Tallin was clearly in charge, and at his hand motion one of the others handed over a meadskin, and Kent in turn gave them some of their meat.

The ‘guests’ savoured the plain salted pork, supplementing it with their own rations of dry fish and old bread. Irina’s group still had enough to last them four days and the mead proved to be well worth the trade. Looking at these men she very strongly doubted they’d actually paid for it.

Still, she let out a satisfied noise as she put the skin away.

“Drink, roofs, and edible food; the things one learns to appreciate when travelling,” she said.

“How true!” Tallin said with flair. “Along with the next breath.”

“Yes. And that.”

“You’re from the Dales, aren’t you?” Kent asked.

“Yes,” Tallin admitted. “Was it the mood that gave us away? That famous Dale cheer?”

He looked at his sour-faced comrades, who muttered vaguely in response.

“No, just the accent.”

“Yes. I’m a Dale man. Whatever that counts for these days. It’s all gotten rather too orderly for my tastes. Yourself?” The question was directed at Kent specifically. “A ways south of here, if I’m not mistaken?”

“I lived within Lord Willem’s fief,” Kent replied. “There was always some disagreement on which territory exactly it fell within.”

“And was that why you left? Tired of the disagreements? No, no, I think I know why you left. The new lords of the land, am I right?”

“That certainly played into it, yes.”

Tallin exhaled.

“Desperation or hubris?,” he said. “Which was it, that made those mystics think they could summon entities from beyond and expect to be able to put them back after use? Honestly, what is more typical than some half-wit conjurer calling on forces that he can’t control?”

“I understand the Dales came out of the Demon War relatively unscathed,” Kent said. “I would say it was despair, plain and simple.”

“Well.”

Tallin shrugged.

“It’s sure left folks like us in a lurch. Folks who want. I think-”

There were sounds outside. Sounds of voices and feet and metal.

“Ah, here they are,” Tallin said. “We’re in here!”

Irina stood up, as did her comrades. She kept a hand propped up on her club as if it was a walking stick.

This new group was much bigger. A quick guess put them at somewhere around twenty. They seemed to be spreading around a bit, but a few sets of feet came towards the door.

The man who entered was flanked by men in mail shirts with swords at their hips. The man himself wore a large fur cape, had a dark beard to match his hair, and had a sword of his own in a fine sheath.

“Good evening, all,” the new arrival said, and took Irina’s four-man group in with a questioning look.

“Camdyn,” Tallin said as he got to his feet. “Good to see you. How many did you bring?”

“Twenty-three,” Camdyn replied. “The rest will join us shortly.”

The man kept his severe face on Irina’s group, with a look that demanded information.

“Oh, these folks were already here,” Tallin said. “Heading north, they say. Out of sight of the Bright Lords.”

“Funny that,” Camdyn said, though he didn’t look amused.

Then he just stood still, with his gaze fixed on them. There was a hardness to the man and Irina sensed a test in the way he just kept them waiting. She kept track of the sounds outside, trying to place the rest of his men. She also went over the general village layout.

“I’ve met a few people who called themselves ‘adventurers’,” Camdyn finally said. “Mostly they were idiot runaways or outlaws who couldn’t be honest about themselves. But you lot look seasoned. You have that air.”

“We do,” Jon replied simply.

“So what brings you to Mid-Melgen?” Camdyn asked, and Irina felt it was no casual question. “The Bright Lords have almost the entire land under firm control. Anywhere south of here is no place for people who want to make their own rules.”

“You might say it was a personal errand,” Jon replied. “We’ve tended to it and now we are indeed hurrying away.”

There was danger in the air. Irina didn’t understand why, but the instincts she’d had to develop were clear.

“Ah, personal,” Camdyn said. “That is what gets one killed, isn’t it? Because anything else one can walk away from.”

“And what did you walk away from?” Jon asked.

“Oh, nothing, in fact. But I’m not here to talk about my past. I’m concerned with the future. See... I’m here to lead a group to the border myself. What do you say to joining us? There is strength in numbers, after all.”

“But visibility as well,” Irina interjected.

“A lot can be hidden in these parts,” Camdyn said. “But I am not fleeing. We have work to do, we stout fellows with iron in the right places. And the more the better.”

“Is this a recruitment attempt?” Jon asked.

“It is. I won’t lie: There will be bloodshed. But also a guaranteed reward. Enough to keep anyone fed for months. What do you say?”

The group looked at one another.

“Let’s discuss this outside,” Jon said and took a step towards the door.

“No,” Camdyn said, and intercepted him. “Let’s discuss this right here, right now.”

“Is there some rush?” Jon asked.

There was some sort of tightening around Camdyn’s mouth that might have been his idea of a smile.

“Well... if you aren’t allies, then you’re witnesses.”

He took a step back, putting himself more firmly between them and the doorway.

“Now, what do you say?”

“I say flash,” Irina replied.

“What?”

“Flash,” Elseth repeated.

Irina squeezed her eyes shut and saw the blinding light of Elseth’s spell through her eyelids. The group sprang into action.

Camdyn, Tallin and the others were momentarily blinded and reacted with typical momentary panic. Irina swung her club into Tallin’s head and the man went down as the cut she’d opened spewed blood. Jon drew his sword and slashed a man open before taking a swing at Camdyn. But though blinded the man flung himself backwards and the blow missed. Kent drove his spear into the gut of one of the other new arrivals. Irina couldn’t tell whether it made it through the mail but the man did fall.

The men drew weapons, stumbled, reached out and shouted. The group rushed towards the doorway and Irina swung at one of the men who’d eaten their pork. She was the last one out into the night air. The rest of Camdyn’s company were already coming for them, drawn by the shouts.

“Down!” Kent told them. “This way!”

They ran for one of the gaps in the northern wall. Irina looked back just as she did so, catching a glimpse of figures backlit by fire, wielding weapons and moving with murderous intent. Then she jumped.

The slope beneath the village was rough and sparsely grown. Her feet slipped in dislodged earth as she traversed downwards with one great, jarring leap after another. She put all her focus into simply keeping her footing as gravity drew her down into the little valley below.

Something flew past her, drawing a faint whistling sound from the air. She did not dare look; spotting obstructions and reacting to them required her full attention. But they were coming.

The four of them reached even ground and before them was the forest. They ran in, fighting their way through low-hanging branches.

Again her heart was pounding. Again she was having an awful adventure that would be funny later if all of them lived.

“Don’t lose them!” a voice shouted from behind.

They pushed in, further and further. If there was a path here they were not fortunate enough to chance upon it. It was all a big fight, against the darkness, against the branches and roots and bushes that pulled on their limbs and clothes, beating and scratching them in passing.

The landscape had started to slope gently upwards when Irina ran into Jon’s broad back. Elseth had drawn the group to a halt.

“Wait, wait,” the woman whispered.

Irina understood and crouched low even as her animal instinct was to keep running. Elseth took a moment to focus her magic, then pointed off into the forest.

“This way!” her voice sounded from that direction.

Their pursuers shouted over one another, then their general momentum seemed to shift towards the false voice.

The four of them waited a few breaths before they dared move again. The gentle slope continued and the river got ever louder. The forest played its usual tricks, obscuring sound and hindering their progress at every step. But they made it. They crested a low ridge and before them was the river, wider than before.

“Where’s that bridge?!” Jon said under his breath. “If they reach it before we do...”

Kent kept on going, to the west. All Irina could do was follow and hope he wasn’t simply choosing a direction at random.

A shout from down below turned that hope into a prayer.

Her body was tired from a full day of travel, its efforts now rewarded with more efforts in place of sleep. She knew perfectly well that her fuel was running low. She’d done enough running in her time.

The bridge came into view. It was a crude old thing, consisting of wooden planks suspended about ten metres above the river by ropes affixed to pillars on each end.

Kent was first, followed by Elseth. Jon waved for Irina to go on ahead of him and she did.

The bridge swayed with their movements and with the club in her right hand she only had the left to grip the rope handrail. A plank broke beneath her foot and her leg almost plunged through. But she stopped herself with the club and kept on going.

Irina was truly wheezing by the time she made it back onto ground. Finally she dared turn and the light Elseth activated above the other end illuminated the group as it reached the bridge.

Oh, how she wished for Lady Lumiara’s power in her veins.

“Like at Crow’s Rest!” Jon said to them and took up position by their end of the bridge. “Kent, support me!”

Yes. Crow’s Rest.

Elseth handed her sling and bullet bag over to Irina, then visibly fought to control her breathing and focus her will. Irina had only ever considered herself a mediocre slinger, but then she wasn’t expected to carry the day here. She fit a clay bullet into the cradle and started swinging.

The first man in line reached Jon, only to fall back as Kent thrust his spear at him. Irina let the bullet fly at the line of men and heard a yelp.

Backup made the man in the lead bolder and he attacked again. Steel audibly met steel. There was groaning and shouting and the shifting of feet, and Irina had to ignore it all and focus on her next shot. It seemed to hit a man in the torso and he fell to one knee. It wasn’t a lethal hit but did slow down the ones behind him as well.

Elseth held out her empty hands, saying nothing, just focusing.

A javelin flew from the dark crowd on the bridge and pure instinct threw Irina away from it. She had no idea whether she’d dodged or if the throw had been bad. She plucked the javelin from the ground and threw it back. Elseth then finished her spell.

The woman generally preferred calling them “tricks”, reflecting her awareness that as magic users went she was low down on the pole. But with enough will and need on the scales she could occasionally manage more than a “trick”.

The bridge ropes on the opposite side all came loose at once, sending the bridge into the river. The men went with it.

Elseth fell to her knees with a gasp.

Irina leaned up against one of the pillars. She stared down into the river. The sounds of shouting made it through the din of the water, fading into the distance as the waterway carried the bandits away. Hoping they would drown was probably overly optimistic.

“Elseth... can you manage a light?” Jon asked.

“No. I don’t think I can.”

“We left our packs behind,” Kent pointed out.

“Well, we will just have to manage,” Jon said.

He took out a rag and cleaned his sword before sheathing it.

“What do you think that was all about?”