Lancaster Devereux had more questions than he had answers. It was clear to him he was not on Sigrun’s trail anymore. He couldn’t fathom what she was thinking. He’d gotten a sealed envelope under his door in the middle of the night too. Orders to secretly move the most notorious man on pearth across the kingdom. Inexplicably, they were to use the four people in their party to do it. No soldiers. No army. No armored wagon to move the man in chains, under guard.

Lancaster had instructions to feign ignorance of their charge. He was unclear as to who else had the same instructions, or was genuinely ignorant until earlier that day. His orders told him to be ready to assume command if Sigrun was unfit for duty, or killed. When he’d read that, he assumed he would be joining an elite unit.

Now, he assumed he’d made the wrong person’s shit list and had been assigned to this party as a means of disposing of him. Everyone in the group was politically inconvenient to someone. The question was, who’s toes had he stepped on? The better question was, how did he survive this fool’s errand of an assignment?

He supposed the best way would be to cast blame for the trouble on Sigrun, and assume command. Once the others followed him, Sigrun would too, and perhaps he could keep them alive.

The wind carried the smell of smoke to him and Lancaster looked around. The clouds high overhead were lit orange by the glow of a large fire.

“Well,” Lancaster muttered, “thank you Peony, that’s one way to find everyone. Burn the whole forest down and see who shows up. Why didn’t I think of that?”

He reigned his horse around, and headed in the direction of the glowing clouds.

***

The log house contained a single room, divided into functional quarters. Sigrun’s unit was spread out inside it. She and Bird had found them without problems. Follow the glowing horizon. When she and Bird arrived, they’d found Peony passed out, Regina tending to him, half an acre of smoldering forest and Lance, looking put out. They’d made their way back to the farmhouse, stabled the horses and lit a fire once they were inside. Sigrun and Lance had argued all the way to the little house. The mess on the porch had halted all conversation.

Sigrun was staring into the flames, trying to decide what to do next. She’d never wanted to command, having to make decisions for other people. Making decisions for herself felt like enough. She’d grown up in and around the palace, her father being a king’s guard. She’d been training to fight since she was little. All she’d wanted was to be like her father. To be good at protecting people.

Tythos Tyrannous Rex had stormed the city, his magic giving the force they commanded the advantage. The bells had rung and calls to arms had gone up. Sigrun had been only sixteen.

“Care to tell me again, how you lost our charge?” Lance’s careful diction spoke of a higher station than he claimed to hold. It put Sigrun’s back up.

She turned to face him. She was a head taller than he was. It was a struggle not to ‘sir’ him and answer quickly. She was in charge.

“Fr’Lancaster,” she barked. Anyone trained in the rank and file— as he claimed— would have snapped to attention. The man had the audacity to look annoyed.

“Yes,” Lance said, “You’re Third. I know, you were put in charge. Well guess what: being in charge of failure is worse than useless. While I am grateful you have saved us the ignominious fate of freezing to death,” he gestured around the room. “My chief concern is completing the mission. As yours should be. Now let’s go over again what happened, and decide what we’re going to do to get our charge back.”

Sigrun was trying to place what his real rank and mission was. She eyed him in silence for a minute. Bird spoke up while she was thinking, saving her the trouble.

“Lance, I didn’t see your sorry ass there, now we been over this once. Maybe you got snow in your ears.”

“I was riding double! Someone made the decision not only to give him a horse, but to let him lead. Our orders were to bring him across country. I suggested bound and walking behind our horses, which would have seen us out of this valley and on schedule.”

Several people began to argue at once.

“Enough!” Sigrun said it loud enough they all fell silent. “Orders were, to bring him. Bird, run us through what you saw. You read sign and know best what happened.”

“Alright…” Bird eyed Lance like he’d rather spit, but launched into it: Hearing screams, riding toward them; Soldiers executing the farmers, Tythos killing soldiers; Questioning the man on the porch, and finally Tythos running off. “Last thing we did was come find you three so you didn’t freeze.”

Lance scoffed, “You expect me to believe that a crippled classless killed how many kingsmen? He may have a magic sword, but against seven trained men? I only saw one body out there, when we rode in.”

The word “classless” tickled at something in Sigrun’s memory. It was a clue.

“You’re going to trust your senses over what I say? After our time together?” Bird said, sounding annoyed. “This man is no classless, he’s Tythos the tyrant. Barbarian king of the north who burned down half the world. He’s dangerous.”

“He’s an old man. A disgraced savage, who we’ve been tasked with delivering in order to secure a deal,” said Lance.

“Dio Santo! You see the mess he is leaving us on the porch?” Said Regina. “I suppose you think that man was just laying that way.”

“The work of a savage,” Lancaster said. “He likely caught the man unawares.”

“You callin me a liar?” Bird said.

Lancaster stepped toward him, laying a hand on the knife at his hip, “What if I am?”

Bird’s eyes flashed and he took a step toward Lancaster. Sigrun stepped between them. She was tall enough that the men couldn’t see each other past her. She was reaching the end of her patience.

“Fr’Lancaster!” She boomed. “One more contentious remark and you’ll feel my boot!”

“When you’re done hiding behind the skirt, I’ll be waiting,” Lance shot at Bird.

Sigrun swung a backhand at Lance’s head. She tried to pull the punch, so as not to crack his skull. She had a brigandine gauntlet on that would add a steel plate to a backhand. Lance was faster than she expected and leaned back out of the way. A sneer was just forming on his face as she caught hold of his cloak with the hand that had missed and yanked him off his feet. She pulled hard enough that he went horizontal in the air. She twisted with the pull and slammed him down onto the table. The table broke with a loud crash, leaving Lance atop the wreckage. His mouth was opening and closing like a marionette.

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Sigrun turned her gaze on Bird, who held up his hands and backed away. Peony was sitting by the fire and was looking over with sleepy interest. He had only recently regained consciousness. Regina was sitting on a chair by the fire, tending to the needs of her bow after getting caught in the snow. She had a smirk on her face.

Lance gasped in a breath and Sigrun looked down at him to see if he was going to try again. This was finally something she understood. She wished the man would get up and try again. After being kicked off the porch earlier, she really wanted to take the fight to someone. Lance didn’t try it, and Sigrun felt let down somehow.

“We don’t have to like each other, but we do have to work together,” Sigrun said. “Now, we are going to discuss plans on how to track and capture Tythos. We are going to accomplish these plans and then—“

The front door to the house burst open and snow blew inside. A solider came stumbling in and fell, like he’d been shoved and a silhouette filled the doorway. It was Tythos.

“Good, you’re here,” Tythos said, and trudged inside, dragging something behind him.

He dropped his burden and pushed the door shut. The thing he’d been dragging was another soldier, unconscious or dead. The simple linen shirt and pants Tythos wore were stained with blood and torn where he’d been cut several times. He had on a pair of soldier’s boots and belt, with a bloodstained jawbone stuck in the sword-loop. Tythos looked around the room, then said,

“We’ve got a problem.”

***

Tythos looked around the small room, taking in the group he was tied to. Sigrun was standing over the blond man in the middle of a broken table. Bird was standing on the other side of Sigrun. The kid that liked to play with fire was sitting with the short woman by a fireplace. They were all looking at him. Looked like his arrival interrupted a fight. Sigrun took a step toward him. None of the others made a move to back her up. These people didn’t trust each other.

Tythos strode across the room and took one of the wooden chairs positioned near the fire. The kid got up and stepped back. The short woman sat back in her chair, giving him an assessing look. Sigrun looked like she was trying to decide what to ask first. Tythos stripped his boots off and began working the blood flow back into his feet. In his youth, he’d been able to spend half a day or more barefoot in the snow, but he was a long way from the cold weather conditioning of the past.

“Found these boys coming from another farm,” Tythos gestured at the two soldiers he’d brought. The one he’d dragged in hadn’t moved, the other sat on the floor looking around like a cornered rabbit. Sigrun’s party was not wearing uniforms or insignia. Tythos marked them as soldiers, if questionably trained, but the soldiers he’d brought likely thought they’d been captured by outlaws.

“They’re not locals,” Tythos continued, “They’re out of Pallbrook like the ones we found on this farm.”

Bird was the first one in the room to recover and speak, “These are the scouts from the unit that was… here?” He gestured at the front door, indicating what lay beyond it.

“No,” Tythos shook his head, “I only caught one of those boys. These two were with a separate unit.”

“Ah,” said Bird, “You were able to pull them away from their unit in the storm? Where are the others headed?”

“The afterlife.”

The man who’d been used to break the table had managed to regain his feet. He made a derisive sound.

“Why are you here?” He said.

Tythos marked him as a noble. He had the sort of snobbish tone that could make a greeting like, “good morning,” sound like ‘go fuck yourself’. His presence in this group was curious. Sigrun evidently didn’t know his station, and he hadn’t assumed command.

“You expect us to believe,” the man continued, “that you singlehandedly captured or killed two full units of soldiers?”

Tythos fixed the man with a look, but didn’t respond.

“What’s more, you brought the supposed prisoners back here, to us, your captors; like we’re all some merry band of thieves?” He gestured at the soldiers Tythos had brought, “Look at how this man is cowering, he’s no soldier. He’s a classless you dressed up in a uniform.”

“Lance,” Bridge said, “You need to shut your yap. I don’t know how your ego bounced off that table intact, but you’re about to step in a bear trap.”

“Mmm,” said the nightmare, “Bear trap. I don’t think you’ve ever been called a bear trap before.”

Tythos ignored the nightmare and the man trying to provoke him. He switched feet, and began trying to rub feeling back into the other one.

“Two units out of Pallbrook with orders to exterminate all the people in this valley would be bad enough,” Tythos said, “But there’s a bigger problem.”

“People,” Lance sneered, “they’re hardly that. If the king’s men have orders to put them down, they must deserve it. I’m sure they’re nothing but filthy dissenters.”

The man was starting to get under Tythos’s skin. He looked at Sigrun, who’d been quietly taking this all in.

“Put your dog on a leash, or I will,” he said.

Lance put a hand on his sword and stepped forward, “You don’t scare me old man—“

Sigrun put an arm out in front of Lance, he tried to push past it, but the arm didn’t budge. She guided him back a step and looked down at him, “Lance,” she said, her impatience still on the surface. He looked into her face and took a step back.

“Fine,” Lance said, “Commander. Don’t forget our orders.” He stalked over to the far corner of the room and leaned against the wall with his arms folded.

Sigrun turned her look on Tythos. She was a tense as a spooked horse. Her posture was rigid and she was clenching and unclenching one of her hands.

“She’s about to explooode,” sang the nightmare.

She did look like she’d rather fight than talk. She met Tythos’s eye, clear challenge in her gaze.

“Where’s the hand?” She asked.

Tythos nodded, “It’s around.”

Sigrun gave him a searching look, then nodded. “And the bigger problem?”

“The bigger problem,” said Tythos. “Is the seventy soldiers camped nearby with special wards against detection by me. That’s me specifically. I’m pretty sure they don’t live out there all the time, so it’s not a coincidence they’re out there the day you come to pick me up.”

“King’s men?” Sigrun asked.

“Yep, they’re wearing the same colors as you, well, when you’re wearing colors. We didn’t get a chance to discuss it earlier, but I get the impression you’re not suppose to let anyone know that the king is transporting me across the country.”

Sigrun looked at Bird. He raised his hands and shook his head.

“Don’t look at me,” he said. “I didn’t even know who we were coming to pick up until you shouted his name on that pig farm.”

Tythos snorted and shot a sympathetic look at Bird. Sigrun turned to Lance, who gave her a sour look.

“Come on,” Sigrun said. “Who’s got an idea?” She looked around the room. “Why would there be soldiers camped nearby, but warded against detection?”

“Where do you have orders to take me?” Tythos asked.

Sigrun looked at him for a moment, a weighing look, then seemed to reach a conclusion. She nodded and said, “As I told you, my orders are to deliver you to Thonos Gap. What I did not say; I was to use the hand as leverage to get you to agree to a bargain that will be struck by the commander there.”

Tythos stared at her for a long minute while this sank in. He took a deep breath. Let it out slowly. He thought so.

“They want me to go back,” he said. “There must be trouble on the other side and they want me to fix it.”

“I don’t know what my commander wants, nor would I presume to know what the king wants,” Sigrun said. “My orders are to deliver you.”

“Well,” Tythos finished with his other foot and stood and stripped his shirt off. It was ripped and soaked. “That doesn’t actually answer what the soldiers are doing here. My best guess is they’re there to make sure you succeed in delivering me, but that doesn’t explain why they sent the Pallbrook troops to wipe the valley.”

“If that’s even the truth,” Lance said.

Tythos looked at him. “One thing I’m not, and that’s a liar. I’ll kill you as soon as look at you— sooner in your case— but I won’t lie to you. Watch your tongue or I’ll let my creature eat you.”

“You will?” Said the nightmare.

“Your what?” Said Lance. “I think the sun’s baked away your wits old man.”

“Yeah,” said Tythos. “If he takes a step towards me, go ahead and swallow him.” Tythos moved away from the fireplace to see if the late Mr Gladwell had some clothes that would fit him.

“I’ve had enough of this,” said Lance. He jabbed a finger at Sigrun, “I got the same orders as you. We’re to deliver this,” he gestured at Tythos, who’d found the clothes and just dropped his pants, “to Thonos Gap, at any cost. It’s time we bound him, hand and foot, threw him over a pack animal and got moving.”

Lance took a step forward and fell out of sight. Everyone in the room cried out, or started talking, all at once. Asking what was going on, what happened, where did he go? Tythos pulled a fresh shirt over his head and smirked.

“Nice,” he said.

***