Cereth, may your blessings be on me!

Eany planted her feet, gritted her teeth. Her instincts demanded one thing – and it did cross her mind that there was no real reason to stand her ground with these near-strangers – but another part of her watched as Raceel Shatterblade charged with murderous intent and thought, I can't back down again. This is my chance to redeem myself...

Metcenzerin and Daerth stood behind her, and Kwanai was at her side. None had the weapon to go one-on-one with Raceel, and there wasn't a scrap of armor between them. It was up to her.

Raceel struck, and Eany's backup scattered.

The Black Paladin's greatsword struck her own with the force of a charging horse, but Eany was ready for it. She didn't try to stop it, but allowed it to push her sword to the side and dodged sideways along with it. She'd hoped there would be a moment for a counter, but for all his size, Raceel moved quickly.

“Someone get her off the doctor,” cried Daerth from inside the dining room. “Kwanai, do something!”

Eany backed hastily through the door into the dining room, and Raceel's sword slammed into the door frame with a solid thwack. In that moment of opening, Eany darted back in.

Behind her, Daerth had another arrow ready to draw, but his target was under as much cover as was available to her. Arinimen, on her hands and knees, scurried after the Stitchdoctor as he retreated down the length of the table, like deranged children playing a game. Arinimen kept describing how she intended to murder him in gruesome and painful ways, and the Stitchdoctor kept laughing brokenly at her.

“Call him off,” Metcenzerin yelled from the entry hall. When everyone scattered, he'd been forced to choose his battle in a split second, and he'd chosen Nelz. “What did you do to Raceel?”

Nelz stood still on the steps of the main stair, watching the paladins fighting in the doorway with a detached kind of amused interest. “Nothing,” he replied, shrugging. “I called to him in the night, and he responded.”

“Don't give me that,” Metcenzerin retorted. “I'm a bard too; I know what music can do. Undo it, or you'll force me to do something neither of us would enjoy.”

The fiddler's mood shifter very abruptly. “Like what?” he snapped. “Please do elaborate, lutenist.”

There was such venom in the last word that Metcenzerin's planned retort fizzled and died. “What did... do you have a problem with lutes?”

“They are stupid instruments for idiots and simpletons.”

A string broke with a discordant twang deep in Metcenzerin's soul.

“I'll tear every muscle out of your body and force them down your bloody bleeding throat! I will skin you alive and make you stitch it back on!”

Arinimen's threats, furious almost to the state of nonsense, fell on thoroughly unimpressed ears. The Stitchdoctor scrambled out from under the table and sprinted towards Daerth, seeing the hunter as better cover then the table only because he was quickly running out of table. Daerth tensed as Arinimen rose, her sword held now in her left hand. His first shot had flown true, but now she was ready for him and, from the way she held that sword, she looked to be just as proficient with her left hand as she was with her right.

The Stitchdoctor took shelter behind him, and Daerth could hear the man's rough breathing through the mask. I really don't want to die defending a crazy cityman, Daerth groaned to himself as Arinimen began to charge, then loosed his arrow.

She swung at the arrow, but too early. The shot struck true, the feathers brushing the edge of her sword as they passed one another before burying the arrowhead in her chest. She staggered on for a few steps, her face still caught in a snarl of hatred, then she fell gasping to her knees.

Eany rolled sideways with the hit, gritting her teeth against the pain. Her armor, the best Rahenian-made, took the bite out of the blow, but not the force. And Raceel Shatterblade struck forcefully.

I could really use some help, guys...

But she didn't dare take her attention off of Raceel for the moment it would require to take stock of where the rest of her new party was. She could hear Arinimen screaming at the Stitchdoctor and Metcenzerin and Nelz yelling at each other, but that was it. Where is Kwanai?

Raceel's sword shook the air as it came down, but Eany wasn't done moving. Crouched – half-risen from her fall – she dodged sideways and turned, giving herself a wide swing at Raceel's side.

Too wide, too slow. His greatsword intercepted the blow, and then, out of nowhere, his gauntletted fist filled her vision.

Metcenzerin saw blood.

Weapons available... two knives I got from the corpses in the Dungeon, and Kwanai's spooky dagger. Good enough to cut that smug smile off that smug face? Yep.

He snatched one of the lighter knives from his belt, but the unfamiliar hilt threw him unexpectedly off. What he had intended to be a quick and unforeseen throwing-knife to Nelz's face became an embarrassing fumble to not drop the weapon on his own foot.

And Nelz laughed.

The fiddler stood on the stairs and laughed, and as he laughed it seemed to Metcenzerin that he heard something whispering right in his ear. Perhaps right inside his head. Vicious and cruel, digging right where it should hurt him the most...

~

He stood in the sea of eyes, and they were all laughing. Dance, Mountain-rat, dance!

And he danced for them. His lute had been taken and they didn't give him a moment to sing, so he danced for them like the fool they thought he was. Like his ancestors had done, at the tip of swords. Dancing, dancing, dancing until they could dance no more.

They started throwing fruit at him. The drunkards who began it meant it to sting, but he had caught the apple and the pear and then the second apple, all in a row. He'd juggled, like he'd been taught at the side of the wagon before the circus opened... he laughed because he had to, made it look like a positive, like it was part of the act.

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And they laughed, and laughed.

And then, they threw knives.

Juggle these, Ratty, if your hands are so clever!

And he had. He obeyed. Because that's what the Mountain people did. They obeyed, because they didn't know how to fight back. They obeyed, became the fools, became the prey, became the corpses...

A knife-blade nicked his hand.

~

Metcenzerin wasn't smiling anymore. He didn't run, or weep, or cower. Perhaps the Paladins had never faced their worst memories before, perhaps there was something else at play, but Metcenzerin heard the whispers that had driven others mad with shame and fear, and he grew cold. His blood burned, but in marble veins.

Mock away, Lowlanders.

The second knife aimed for the heart of Duke Windlee Senior of Southwindleton left his fingers like a butterfly lifting from the stones. Smooth and light, with the visions of the past in beautiful harmony with the present. And he knew it was a perfect throw, both times.

Nelz's laughter cut off abruptly. The visions and the whispers vanished, and Metcenzerin blinked to clear his eyes. The fiddler stood stiffly on the stairs, his fingers wrapped around the knife where he had snatched it from the air, but there was still blood. It flowed quickly from a near-severed thumb, stained his sleeve and dripped steadily to the ground.

Metcenzerin let out his breath.

“No one laughs at me.”

Eany wavered, stunned.

One mistake ends the fight...

But Raceel didn't strike. He stood over her, a perfect opportunity to finish the fight, and he didn't take it. Eany blinked, cleared her vision, and he was still standing with his sword held almost loosely at his side.

“Shatterblade, I need you to crush someone for me.”

Nelz's raised voice had lost all sense of smugness. Now it was all furious anger, rivaling Arinimen's for venom. Raceel wavered, then turned away from Eany and strode back towards the entry hall.

Nelz waited there for him, his fingers still wrapped around Metcenzerin's knife, except one bloody finger outstretched towards the lutenist. He didn't say anything, but to the black paladin the gaze of his vibrantly-green eyes spoke like an officer's command.

But Raceel hesitated again.

Something had cracked, and the cracks weren't healing.

“Shatterblade,” said Nelz warningly, and Raceel stiffened. The implied order to kill Metcenzerin widened the cracks. Instantly, Nelz's command changed, and the fury seemed to subside. “Come,” he softly ordered, and this time Raceel almost seemed relieved to obey.

In the dining room, Eany got to her feet, blood dripping from her torn lips and broken nose, but once again prepared to fight. In that moment, however, the fight seemed to have drained from all involved.

“Master... please...”

Eany glanced over her shoulder, her gaze drawn to Daerth's opponent as the woman feebly cried out. She was sprawled on the ground, her hand pressed around the arrow protruding from her chest, and her weakened voice barely rose far enough for Eany to hear, much less Nelz in the other room.

Kwanai was nowhere to be seen.

I should go after Raceel... flashed through Eany's mind, but before she could act, a changed voice rose, echoing gloriously, through the room.

The words weren't important, but the voice and the tune were enchanting. Daerth's raised bow drooped, and the Stitchdoctor tilted his head to one side, and even in the other room Metcenzerin's attention was drawn away from what he was doing. Raceel stopped in his tracks at the bottom of the stairs, his glazed eyes suddenly brightening.

Of all of them, only Eany realized what the singer woman was saying.

“Master, teacher, don't leave me to die.” Arinimen was begging, her pleas free-verse, to the song of that alluring, magical voice. “Tell me her name that I might call, call upon her hidden name, allow me to draw in life anew. Master, oh master, I don't want to die...”

Unnoticed by any of them, beneath the siren's singing, Nelz the Songbird was also singing, but his was of a different nature. A nameless language formed his lyrics, and there was no music to be heard by mortal ears. He, too, was making a request, and he, too, called to his master.

Then the sunlight vanished.

A rush of air, stale and heavy like the air of long-sealed tomb, flooded the entry hall. Metcenzerin and Eany choked, the same sense that allowed them to call upon their Circle patrons now allowing the faint echoes of something else touch their souls. Twisted glowing runes sprang up from the ground, growing like roots across the floor with Nelz and the stairs in the center, lighting the room in flickering red. The air was filled with a sound-not-a-sound, like the pulsing of blood in your ears, but outside and surrounding them.

Arinimen's voice died unnoticed. Nelz's rose to a fever pitch.

An arrow whistled through the air and plunged into the fiddler's throat, but the twisted chant did not stop. Nelz gleefully gurgled blood between his bared teeth, then lunged at Raceel.

The wicked runes, the dead pulsing air, the sense of oppression, all rushed together in an instant. All sound vanished so suddenly that the following silence rang deafeningly in all their ears.

Except Raceel's.

The black paladin stood, frozen by The Songbird's touch. His sword falling limply from a nerveless grip. After a brief moment that felt longer in the dense silence, he crumbled to the ground.

Nelz pulled Daerth's arrow out of his own throat with the now-flawless hand Metcenzerin's knife had almost destroyed. The mortal wound vanished before the onlookers' horrified eyes, leaving only the remnant blood to prove it had ever existed.

“Thank you so much,” he said with a smile, glancing down at the black-armored body at his feet. “Moron.”

A shriek broke the heavy spell that the act of beyond magic had left behind, and Eany had to jump out of the way as the Stitchdoctor sprinted past her. Nelz nimbly jumped back up the stairs to avoid a wild scalpel attack, then easily ducked out of the way as another arrow sped towards him from Daerth in the dining room doorway.

“Oh, I'm done with you,” he declared in what was probably meant to be an encouraging tone, backing up the stairs with every word. “I've had my fill, more then enough, and I know exactly where you'll be when I want another bite. Enjoy the rest of the game you were stupid enough to get involved in, idiots.”

With a wickedly gleeful chuckle, he raced up the rest of the stairs and vanished into one of the halls beyond. Eany, Metcenzerin, and Daerth all looked at one another, a silent conversation passing between them in a heartbeat, and then rushed the stairs.

The Stitchdoctor was already at Raceel's side, laying out his tools in orderly rows, and he didn't as much as glance up at them as they passed. By the time the three reached the top of the stairs, Nelz was out of sight, but Daerth immediately went to check every room and hall for signs of his passage, and the other two followed close behind.

Nothing. No trace of him. They scoured the upstairs, explored the dusty servants' staircases, and found nothing. The master of the manor seemed to have vanished into thin air.

They met again at the top of the main stairs, and when they did they found Kwanai already there waiting. The plaguemancer raised a warding hand when he saw them.

“Do not go downstairs.”

Metcenzerin felt Daerth make a move and instinctively grabbed the hunter's arm, barely getting there in time to stop him from lunging at Kwanai. “Is the Stitchdoctor still working?” he asked, trying to pull Daerth back as he spoke and failing. “What's the problem?”

“Working?” asked Kwanai, and his already strange eyes narrowed in an expression impossible to interpret. “There is nothing to work with. Your mad human doctor is trying to rival gods.”

Metcenzerin felt Daerth twitching beneath his grasp. Through gritted teeth and with a look like thunder, he asked, “Where were you?”