In the Ash Fall Mountains, every villa was a fortress, every lord a king. The Black Keep was the oldest and largest of them all, with halls and chambers carved deep through the rock. The place had changed hands a dozen times and had collapsed on itself nearly as often, following the tectonic upheaval of eruptions, but the locals always reclaimed it. They had a genetic line of stigmata that let them tear up and reform the stone, else it would have never been feasible to stay there so long.

There was of course an allure to the place, which Aisha had heard of and never trusted before. Her place in the main hall, that is she stood along one of the support walls, in light of the main braziers and able to speak up if needed, had her right beside one of the clay pipe heaters. Warm steam billowed up, carrying a trace of sulfur, but also of trickling water. The Black Keep had a natural hot spring sequestered away even more safely than their treasures.

“Where is this Medorosa? I granted this audience because your leader was supposed to be here himself. And what? I get his sister? And you… what? His manservant? Why am I treating with you two instead of Medorosa?”

The lord of the Black Keep, Erdro Karakale, sat upon a stone throne with silk cushions. As old as her father, but still in fighting shape, he looked every bit the cast of a mountain man. Woolen hair streaked with grey that ran past his shoulders, and a certain roughness to his skin like leather. He sat slouched in his chair, squeezing the arm of his throne with such strength that it might have crushed had it been made of wood.

His oldest wife, first of three, shook her head and said, “Did he think our hospitality was free merely because we put up one lone rider that sold promises?”

Her brother’s spokesman wrung his hands and supplicated with smiles and bows. “Please, my apologies dear Sir… madams,” he said with glances to the younger wives as well. The youngest was heavy with child and, as far as Aisha had seen that night, had never looked up from her lap.

Erdro’s wives were the only other women in the hall beside Aisha. His ten sons, biological and by marriage, stood leaning against the walls up and down the hall, each with their own servant to see to them. Some had brought warrior brutes, while others had brought young waifs that left Aisha speculating about either their interests, or whose family they had been taken from as ward. The number of mountain men was enough to make the hall suffocating for her nevertheless.

Medorosa’s sycophant continued, “He has merely been delayed by bringing you a proper tribute. It will be worth the wait!”

Erdro grunted and pounded his fist on his throne. “Then shouldn’t you at least be entertaining me as we sit here waiting? Your silence makes me want to rip your teeth out.”

The sycophant visibly cringed, the sort of deflective posture that saved one from a bully, even when the bully was a grown man.

“You there,” Erdro said when his gaze fell on Aisha. “I’ve been told you’re a songstress. If that’s not false, why don’t you show us your talents?”

One of his sons, with the protection of shadows to hide him, said, “There should be at least one thing her mouth is good for,” and his younger brothers chuckled.

Erdro didn’t so much as crack a smile, else she would not have answered, “How about a poem? Have you heard the story of The Wolf Who Hunted The Moon?”(1)

Erdro nodded. “You’ll have to speak up more, lass, if you expect these boys to hear you. I’d prefer music, but I don’t even have a harp to hand you.”

Aisha grimaced and stepped forward. She flicked her coppery hair back over her shoulder, as though she were once again in a tavern night, and began in a melodious falsetto.

Beneath the trees and in the mud,

Between the hills where the cold wind blew,

The wolf did hunt before the morning dew.

‘Twas heaven’s light that awaited the blood.

At once the sycophant leapt back in, grabbing for her arm and saying, “Aisha-ima, please, you don’t have to. This delay is entirely my fault and it is my responsibility to-”

Erdro’s voice exploded in the hall. “Who told you to stop her? Was I talking to you?” The man bowed his head, and would have grovelled if it wouldn't have interfered with the recitement further.

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Aisha cleared her throat and resumed.

From broken hunted hare it did flood.

One life snuffed for another who

prowled alone, soon to hunger anew.

Its grey fur soiled, marked with blood.

The doors to the hall were shoved open before she could reach the third stanza. A horrible scraping of timber against sand and stone as one man pushed through the gates. An introduction came from the lips of Erdro’s youngest son, the one closest to the door. “Horsebreaker! What is the meaning of this?”

Horsebreaker, the bandit lord of a nearby mountain pass that was still accessible after the eruption, marched in through the middle, despite a dozen men drawing steel around him. He had a limp in one leg, which made his bead and silver laden hair sway. It also made his shirt of brass mail rattle against his body. He had a face worse than looking at a rotting corpse, and yet he didn’t do more than glance at Aisha as he walked up to Erdro.

Horsebreaker was a monster of a man who invented all manner of ways to murder to entertain himself. He disemboweled prisoners and sewed their guts back up with coals. He played games of ripping the lungs out of his prey and counting how long it took for them to die. He kept a record tally of how many cuts he could inflict or peels of skin he could remove before the man died. And all of that was done to people who thought they could surrender their goods and be spared.

“What is the meaning of this?” he asked.

Horsebreaker pulled out a dagger that Aisha at once recognized as her brother’s honor blade. “This!” the man declared, slurring his words somewhat. He had stopped a fair distance from Erdro’s throne, enough that his sons didn’t charge at him for showing bare steel. “Is the gift that Medorosa Canta has prepared for you.”

Then the man plunged the knife through his own throat. He ripped his own jugular and held up the bloody knife in a salute. His life blood shot out through the air, splattering the ground in four massive pumps of his heart before he collapsed dead.

The desired effect was manifested at once, for Erdro Karakale leapt to his feet with mouth agape. He stared at the corpse, and only when it didn’t leap back up. The only thing that moved besides himself, was the creeping pool of blood that spread across the stone floor of the hall. No one seemed to know what to do, let alone whether they still needed the swords in their hands.

Eventually, their attention returned to the door that Horsebreaker had come from, and they saw Medorosa Canta strolling in with a grin on his face. “I suppose I should apologize for the mess. I figured you would like the gift though.”

“Gift?” Erdro asked, though he had heard it all himself well enough.

“Yes, the mountain pass, the head of your enemy, is it not a good gift? I thought I should demonstrate my worth,” Medorosa said. He walked in, hands open and empty for all to see, before he picked up his honor blade from the corpse of Horsebreaker.

Erdro caught on that it had been the work of a stigmata, for little else could reconcile the bandit’s actions. That put a grin on the man’s face, grander than any trifling smirk from the evening. As he stroked his beard, he said, “I can understand now why you were delayed. Just as a proper feast cannot be rushed, something so succulent for the ambition must take the time it needs.”

Medorosa returned the smile and vanished the bloody knife into his sash. Of course, he didn’t sheathe it; but, everyone who’s had a blade in their hand for long enough knows that there are reasons you cover up a knife’s edge. So quiet compromises had been made to his honor. He said, “Still, I apologize it took so long to arrange. I trust my friend and my sister kept you well enough company.”

Erdro nodded. “Well enough. It merely built anticipation in me; which I see has been worth the wait.”

Her brother again spread his arms. “Oh, but I have so much more for you. I have come to offer you, Rackvidd!”

Some of the youths laughed, for they thought it impossible. Erdro did not laugh. He turned his gaze to the corpse of Horsebreaker and back to Medorosa. “All my life I have kept that dream inside me; a gem too hard to grasp and yet I coveted it from afar. A man like me,” he said, gesturing to his arrayed family, “I have a dozen problems to keep me occupied and some as bad as the rest put together.”

Aisha tried to spot who he was looking at when he said that, but could only guess between the three men who had their hair short and styled up with some kind of wax.

“Then join me,” Medorosa said. “Together we can break the Vassish foothold. Just today I received word that my men have captured some two hundred of their soldiers; pinned them into a pass with no escape. They have sued for peace! Surrender, to us men of Giordana! Can you believe it? But this is the reality I am offering!”

Aisha’s stomach leapt in her chest. She stepped closer. “Solhart has surrendered?”

Medorosa’s grin turned to her. “Or soon enough if not already. LIke I said, Sister, he took the North Road and didn’t know his way. He marched right to the collapse and realized he was trapped. I’m sure Almir will be riding down with his head for me soon.”

Erdro bellowed, slapping his hand on his belly. “Wine!” he barked, turning on his second wife. The woman vanished down a hall, and he shouted after her. “This is now a celebration, you hear me, woman? Bring out a whole barrel, and let us see what dreams this man can conjure up for us.”

Their hands slapped together and squeezed, and in doing so, the strength of the Cynizia doubled. The sight of it made Aisha faint, and she stumbled away, returning to her shadowed wall to rest against the steam vent. And yet, engraved in her soul by the binding power of the Divine Beast, her contract still bound her, for Lucius had not been slain.

She slid down and sat on the floor, chewing her thumbnail as Medorosa’s subordinates joined everyone in the hall. Chatter and boasting and cheers swallowed the hall with noise. She didn’t even notice the approach of the woman until a hand tapped her on the shoulder. Erdro’s youngest wife offered a hand and a smile. “We can retire. You look like you need a bath.”

Aisha again let herself fantasize about what lay beneath, and pushed out the worries. “Thank you,” she said, and took the woman’s hand. She needed time to think.

She needed time to figure out how to get into Rackvidd and find me.