Sascha had visited Lonebrook once before, not too long ago, near the start of summer. Back then the village’s winding dirt streets had been alive and bustling with activity. He remembered the hordes of curious children in particular, and how they used to hide around each corner, popping their heads out every now and then to get a proper look at him. The adults weren’t any better. Slightly less conspicuous in their approach, perhaps, but just as curious. Sascha was used to being gawked at. He didn’t mind, so long as the onlookers stuck to snooping and left their torches and pitchforks at home.
His heart dropped ever-lower as Sergeant Windshot led the procession from the surrounding woods into the village. Lonebrook was a sad shadow of its former glory. The bustling streets were empty and the gangs of unruly children eerily absent. The windows were closed, curtains drawn, and in some cases, boarded up entirely. The people out and about appeared to be soldiers and, unlike Lonebrook’s inhabitants, they openly stared with derision, not curiosity, painted on their miserable faces.
The light sprinkle turned to rain, rendering the winding streets to mud. Sergeant Windshot maintained his unhurried pace. Sascha appreciated the lack of urgency given the sorry state of his stiff legs but he could tell from the sergeant’s smirking face that the set pace had not been for his benefit. Their division witch escort, Aster, acted like a pampered housecat caught out in a downpour. She huffed and hissed, hurling vitriol-laced jabs at Sergeant Windshot at every opportunity, egging him on to react. Windshot was quite content to sit back and let the weather fight his battle for him.
The procession crossed into the village square on their way to the jailhouse. The stench of putrid flesh permeated the wet air, spoiling the comforting smells of rain and mud. Sascha pulled Dewpetal’s shivering body closer as they passed beneath the gallows. Two villagers hung limp on the platform above, their lifeless bodies rotating slowly in the breeze. They’d been up there a while, given the stage of decomposition.
Sergeant Windshot winced when he saw them. Shaking his head, the officer muttered something unintelligible under his breath and quickened his pace.
They reached the jailhouse shortly after. It was a small, stone-crafted building that looked as though it hadn’t seen much use until recently. The front served as a reception area, fitted with a solid wood desk and an assortment of chairs, all of which were currently huddled around the lit hearth in the corner. The two soldiers manning the room stood to attention at their unexpected arrival. They, like the other soldiers they’d passed along the way, did nothing to disguise their blatant disgust.
Originally, Sascha had assumed that their disgust was for Dewpetal and him. He was taken aback to realize he was wrong. The soldiers weren’t glaring at him, they were glaring at Aster. She noticed as well and simply smiled, silently daring them to say whatever it was they were obviously holding back.
“Sit down,” Sergeant Windshot ordered, wearily. “It’s not worth it.”
Aster’s wolfish smile turned into a pout. “Must you always be such a wet blanket?”
Sergeant Windshot fetched the keys from the wall, retorting, “Don’t you have a master to be reporting to? I’m sure you’re just dying to tell him how I cut his prisoners down.”
Aster held her gloved hands out at her sides as she twirled around, employing a strange gait that looked to be several bounces shy of a skip. Her voice, too, had an unusual singsong quality to it. “It won’t be me doing the dying when he finds out, Sergeant.”
Sergeant Windshot gave another sorry shake of his shaggy head before kicking open the door behind the reception desk and leading the prisoners into the adjoining passage. The short hallway branched up ahead. The funk of old cooking oil and burnt tea leaves bled in from the left — from the kitchen area, likely. Sascha and Dewpetal were escorted down the right, through another heavily barred door and into the awaiting cell block.
For such a small village, Sascha was surprised Lonebrook’s founders had bothered with a jailhouse at all. What’s worse, they’d taken the steps necessary to craft a structurally sound one. With more than one cell! Granted, there were still only two, but that was twice as many as he expected. Both cells shared a thick, stone wall at their back, with rows of unbendable iron at their front. The spacing of each bar had been taken into consideration as well. Not even Dewpetal, equipped with the flexible spine of a cat, could hope to squeeze her way through.
Damn Lonebrook and its industrial inhabitants, Sascha cursed. Their adherence to such high standards of quality and craftsmanship would be his undoing. His hopes of breaking down through sheer force alone withered before his eyes. Even armed with a sledgehammer, he doubted he’d be able to knock a sizeable enough hole to fit through before someone raised the alarm.
Sergeant Windshot drew open the barred door and signaled for both prisoners to make themselves at home. Sascha winced when the door slammed shut behind him. This was the second time he’d found himself on the wrong side of a cell and he didn’t like it any better than the first. At least there wasn’t an unstable mountain threatening to crumble on top of him this time, he supposed.
Sergeant Windshot gave the pair a halfhearted speech about minding their manners before he filed out, taking his soldiers with him.
Dewpetal waited until the entryway door was slammed shut and bolted before sliding from Sascha’s arms and onto the floor. She didn’t get much further. Exhausted, the little goblin spread out over the cold stone like a puddle.
The cell was tiny and the cot bolted against the back wall was comically undersized. It did have a blanket tucked neatly over the straw mattress, however. And, seeing as this was Lonebrook and its inhabitants gave an inordinate amount of shits to each detail, it meant the blanket would be of decent quality. None of that thin, moth hole-riddled garbage the army passed off as bedding. Sascha lumbered over to the cot and snatched the covering from the mattress.
Blanket in hand, Sascha turned back around and froze. In his haste to retrieve the blanket, he’d missed the dead rat curled on the ground. Its mangled corpse rested directly between him and Dewpetal. Dewpetal was staring at it as well, except instead of revulsion, Sascha saw hunger in her eyes.
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“No,” he warned. “Don’t even think about it. It’s spoiled. You can smell the rot, can’t you?”
Dewpetal was beyond thinking about it. She rose up onto all fours, prepared to pounce, and slunk closer.
Neither of them had eaten in four days. And whereas Sascha had ample reserves, Dewpetal was mostly skin and bone. He couldn’t fault her for being desperate for a meal, but this wasn’t food, it was suicide. “I’ll see if I can beg some bread off one of the guards.” Sascha edged a cautious step forward as he stretched the blanket between his hands, trying to reason with her. “Just don’t do anything rash before then, please?”
Dewpetal lunged forward, but Sascha was a hair quicker. He threw the blanket over the top of her and kicked the decomposing rodent off to the side. It slid a ways before coming to a stop alongside the front of the cell, still regretfully inside the bars.
Dewpetal rose up onto her back legs and ripped the blanket away, hurling it onto the floor. A heated stomp of her foot informed Sascha that what she put in her mouth was none of his blasted business.
Dewpetal had yet to notice the rat was still inside the cell. Sascha tried to keep her attention on him as he slowly circled around her, set on tossing the soiled corpse between the bars before the goblin could scarf it down. “You can’t eat a spoiled rat,” he insisted. “It’ll be the death of you. Damn thing is probably crawling with disease.”
Dewpetal gave him the finger, as she had seen Mul and Lingon do countless times in the past.
“I know this is the starvation talking, but that’s still incredibly rude.”
The middle finger on Dewpetal’s left hand slowly lifted into the air, joining that of her right.
A few more steps was all Sascha needed to close the distance. He bent and snatched up the blanket as he sidled past. The thick cloth had worked surprisingly well as a deterrent the first time. While he hoped he wouldn’t have to employ it a second, it was crucial to have a backup plan handy just in case. He narrowed his eyes at the goblin and her willful display of defiance. “Better get it out of your system now. You make that gesture to one of the soldiers and they’ll gladly lop those fingers off for you.”
Dewpetal’s wrinkled brow indicated she sensed something amiss. She chanced a quick glance over her shoulder and spied the rat corpse alongside the bars. She spun around and pounced, only to be caught in the infernal blanket a second time. Dewpetal howled with outrage, but her snapping jaws and slicing claws caught only fabric as she tried to fight her way out of Sascha’s makeshift net.
“I am well aware how ridiculous this looks,” Sascha grunted, struggling to keep the goblin contained within the blanket long enough to dispose of the rat properly. He kicked it again, but the emaciated body struck the bars and stopped, still inside.
Oh gods, he whimpered. He was going to have to touch it.
Wincing, Sascha reached down and gingerly picked it up by the tail. The rancid stench of rotted meat filled his nostrils. Gagging, Sascha tossed it between the bars and shuddered. He released the squirming blanket and looked desperately across the cell, searching for something, anything, with which to wash his hands. The rusted chamber pot in the corner was his only option and, for obvious reasons, he decided whatever was housed inside was infinitely worse than touching a dead rat.
Dewpetal’s head popped up out of the top of the blanket as she shouted something at him Yolkavisch.
“I stand by what I did.” Sascha reluctantly wiped his hand against the back of his pant leg. “Name calling isn’t going to help.”
Dewpetal continued to do so anyway.
“She says to stop treating her like the mother of your child,” a third, weary voice emitted from the corner.
Sascha flinched in surprise as the sting of embarrassment crept across his nose. And here he’d thought they’d been alone. He hated to think someone had just bore witness to their undignified squabble. He turned, silently kicking himself for not thinking to check the cell next to them sooner. To his credit, the cell’s sole occupant was easy to miss. The prisoner, a dark brown faun, was in the far corner, wrapped in an equally dark blanket, role-playing a shadow with remarkable accuracy. Had the prisoner not spoken, Sascha would not have noticed him at all.
What was even more surprising than the faun’s presence was the fact that he understood Yolkavisch — a language that by proximity alone, should have been foreign to him.
Dewpetal tucked the blanket around her shoulders as she sagged against the bars, lamenting her woes to an understanding audience.
The faun generously translated. “She understands you miss Oralia, but you can’t use her as a stand-in. Find someone else to fuss over.” The faun’s sad, brown eyes drifted to the ceiling, as though he’d lost interest in the situation already. “That’s the gist of it, anyway. I excluded the majority of the insults. They weren’t worth repeating.”
Sascha moved closer to the barred divider that separated their cells. “Judge Belfast?”
“In the flesh,” Judge Belfast replied, still staring at the ceiling. The judge was thin and frail. Dried blood matted his graying beard and the discolored skin on the left side of his face was so swollen, it nearly swallowed his eye. “What’s left of it anyway.”
“Did the soldiers do this to you?” Sascha asked.
Judge Belfast opened his mouth to speak, but hesitated before anything of substance spilled forth. His long ears flicked to the side. Whatever sounds had him on alert were too faint for Sascha to hear. Not for Dewpetal, though. She threw the blanket back over her head and scurried to the back, tucking herself underneath the bunk, out of sight.
The ominous echo of footsteps filled the room as someone swept down the hallway towards them. The bolt scraped against metal as it was drawn back before the entryway door swung open and sharply-dressed elf strode inside. He wore no emblem, no badge, nor seal to identify his title. His attire, while clean and nicely fitted, was simple. Hardly a step above everyday clothing. Expensive, sure, but certainly nothing resembling a uniform. Sascha couldn’t shake the feeling that it was intentional, as though whoever this newcomer was, he used not glamour, but the mundane, to hide in plain sight.
The elf had a plain face, with plain hair, and plain clothes. Everything about him was utterly unremarkable. Easily forgotten, unnoticed, just another face in the crowd — save for the ring on his left small finger. The band was thick and boring, but the blue stone had the unfortunate quality of drawing the eye.
The elf noticed Sascha staring and tugged his sleeve back over it. “This is it then?” he said. Even his voice sounded bored. It was flat and free of inflection. “Oralia’s Dawnsight’s mighty army? Frankly, I’m insulted. I came all the way from the capital expecting a fight and what do I get?”
His disinterested gaze swept from Sascha to where Dewpetal was hiding beneath the bunk, and then back again. He appeared as enthused with the situation as someone about to eat a boiled sock. “An orc, a goblin, and a handful of country bumpkins. I expected more from her.”
Something tugged at the back of Sascha’s mind, a long-forgotten instinct carried over from when the first orcs walked the land. It awakened, without warning, and set every nerve in his body on edge. The elf standing before him was no elf at all, but a viper. Every buried instinct pulsing through Sascha’s veins demanded he smash it, immediately, before it was given the opportunity to strike.
“Where are my manners? Forgive me. I’m so accustomed to sticking to the shadows, I often forget to introduce myself.” the elf tutted. The mask of plain indifference slipped from his face, allowing a venomous smile to take its place. “Tarathiel Cray. I don’t bother with titles, but Mister Cray’s fine if you insist on them.”